She's the Man
by thejilyship
Summary: Lily Evans has only ever wanted one thing since starting school at age eleven; To become an Auror. This was not possible at Beauxbatons academy for ladies however, because the most dangerous thing they taught you to combat there was wine stains on your silk dress robes. So she's going to Hogwarts, which just so happens to be an all boys school. That's only a minor problem. AU Jily
1. Chapter 1

AN: Here we go. This story has been a long time in the making, and since I'm stuck in an airport for who knows how long, I've decided to write it all (hopefully) today. Wish me luck!

* * *

 _"A man does what he can; a woman does what a man cannot."_  
 _― Isabel Allende, Inés of My Soul_

 **Day One:**

Lily adjusted her robes and reached up to brush locks of hair that were no longer there behind her ear. So far everything was going according to her plan. Her plan was as follows: Don't get caught. It was short and simple, but she had a feeling that it was going to be a bit more difficult than the brevity suggested.

The train ride had been long, but she had kept to herself and no one had really tried to talk to her. They had stared, and whispered behind their hands, which had worried her at first, but she assumed that the whispering had more to do with the fact that she was a new student than anything else. She knew that Hogwarts didn't receive a lot of transfer students, especially not seventh years.

She had been sorted into Gryffindor, which wasn't much of a shock to her, even though she had been hoping for Ravenclaw. With how far behind she was in all of the classes that Hogwarts offered, she could use the ego boost to remind her of how intelligent she was. But Gryffindor was a good fit too, because it was either extremely brave or extremely stupid to be doing what she was doing. According to the hat that had gone through her head, it was a bit of both.

"This is strange." One of her new roommates said, throwing his cloak on a bed near a window and staring at the bed that had Lily's trunk near it. This particular roommate was too broad and good looking to be only seventeen years old. He had a sharp jawline, stormy eyes and hair that Lily would kill for at the moment. She once again reached up for her own hair. "It's only ever been the four of us."

"It is going to be an… adjustment." This roommate was tall, thin and also had better hair than Lily. He didn't speak as though he was trying to scare Lily into suggesting she sleep in the common room, but she could tell by all the glances the four boys before her kept sharing that she wasn't exactly a welcomed addition.

"I won't be a bother, I promise." She said, her voice an octave that was still unfamiliar to her. "With all the homework we'll get this year, I doubt I'll be anywhere but class and the library for the most part."

Roommate number three seemed to agree with her as he laughed humorlessly and patted a stack of books that he had just finished fishing out of his trunk. "I think that you've got the right of it." He sighed. "And don't listen to them," He waved off the other two, who had taken to unpacking their trunks as well. "They don't have any friends outside of this room so their social skills are subpar at best. My name's Remus." He stood up and held out a hand in her direction.

Lily liked this boy almost instantly. He had sandy blonde hair, dark blue eyes and a crooked smile that didn't make her feel at all unwelcomed. "Nice to meet you, Remus. I'm Marcus."

"McKinnon, right?" Lily's eyes darted back over to the first boy.

"That's Sirius." Remus said, his tone indicative of an eye roll.

"Marcus McKinnon." Lily nodded. "That's right. My name mean something to you?"

"I might have met your sister at some point." He shrugged, and Lily knew that this was her first test. Sirius had chosen those words deliberately and she was a bloke now, she couldn't just ignore them.

"You'd remember meeting one of my sisters," She said, turning away and picking up her stack of school books. She walked around her bed and set them on the night stand. "Marlene would kick your arse if you tried anything, Felicity would have had _me_ kick your arse and Jemma's an Auror, so I'm just going to assume you weren't talking about her."

The room was quiet for a minute and she could feel all four boys stares on her back. She ran a finger along the spines of her books and shifted them around so that her Transfigurations book was on the top. It was her first class tomorrow morning.

Sirius was the first to break the silence, laughing and shaking his head, he walked across the room and held out his hand. "Sirius Black. It's nice to meet you."

Lily couldn't help but feel a bit victorious as she took his hand and repeated the sentiment. The tall boy walked over and offered her his hand as well.

"James Potter. That lad over there is Peter Pettigrew." The fourth boy waved. "We don't mean to come off as-"

"Prats?" Remus offered.

"Sure." James shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. "It's only, the four of us are pretty close-"

"Too close." Remus interjected.

"Some could make that argument." James nodded.

"Some have. McGonagall called you and Pads 'dysfunctional codependents' in her end of year reviews. She also made sure that you were both taking some different classes so that the other professors didn't have to deal with the two of you as a pair."

"Yes, we get it Remus." Sirius threw one of his shoes at Remus. "But we can't help it. James and I are in love and we don't care who knows it." James laughed and blew a kiss in Sirius's direction, the later pretended to catch it and then winked, slipping his hand into his pocket.

"I'm not dealing with another year of this." Peter said, walking over to Remus's trunk and digging through until he found a blue tin. "What did your mum send up this year?"

"Coconut fudge." Remus said, snatching the tin from him. "But I don't remember saying that I was going to share with you."

"Don't touch Moony's chocolate, Pete. You know better than that." James said, gripping the hem of his dress shirt and wrenching it over his head. "We should probably get to bed soon." He was reaching for his pants now and Lily could feel her face heating up. She could count on one hand the number of naked boys she'd seen. Actually, she didn't need to use her hand because she'd seen none. None naked boys.

Sirius let out a yawn of assent and then started undoing the buttons on his shirt. "I'm not going to enjoy transitioning back to school schedule."

"You mean waking up before one in the afternoon?" James' pants were now pooled around his ankles and Lily wasn't sure what to do. Remus and Peter had started to undress as well and it was going to look very strange if she just stood there all red in the face and watched them. Would it be weird if she took her pajamas and changed in the loo?

It didn't really matter if it was strange, it was her only option. They may have changed a lot about her physic with hall their spells and whatnot, but she was still a girl underneath her cloths. She had bound her chest to make it look flat and that was about it.

She picked up her nightclothes and grabbed her toothbrush before heading off to the loo.

"Bit shy, McKinnon?" Sirius called after her.

She knew that she should say something, shoot back with some witty comeback, but she was at a loss and opted for pretending she didn't hear him and closing the door behind her. She pulled her clothes off quickly, and when she was dressed again, she ran her toothbrush under the tap and then walked back into the room with it hanging out of her mouth.

"What time does breakfast start?" She asked, throwing her laundry at the foot of her bed. That was something that she wasn't going to have a hard time remembering. She was naturally a slob. So you know, at least she had that going for her.

"Breakfast starts at seven. But you can eat till ten."

"Don't classes start at nine?"

"Yeah, but not everyone has a class at nine." Peter smiled. "Like me for example. Tomorrow I have free period till eleven." Sirius sighed dramatically and threw a pillow at him.

"That's because you failed out of Transfiguration."

"Yes, but I don't have class till eleven on Fridays."

"It's strange that we're starting school on a Friday this year." James said, running a hand through his hair. "Though I suppose it will make it easier to have Quidditch tryouts early. I'll just have them this weekend."

"You're not going to be a git and have two day tryouts again, are you?" Sirius said, looking ready to lob another pillow at someone. Lily walked back to the loo and spit, rinsed out her mouth and then left her tooth brush on the counter.

She came back into the room and fished her schoolbag out of her trunk, not really paying attention to the conversation because Quidditch was something that she just wasn't familiar with. They didn't have a league at Beauxbatons, which is where Lily studied magic for the last six years of her life. Her headmistress, Evelyn Fox, had thought the sport far too violent for the ladies that she was cultivating.

"What about you, McKinnon? What do you play?"

"What?" Lily turned towards James, with what she was sure was a blank expression.

"What position do you play?" Lily blinked.

"Quidditch position?" She asked.

"That is what we're talking about." He nodded. "You've got an in with the captain after all, so if you wanted to try out for the team…"

"How do I have an 'in'?"

"Well, I'm the captain." He said, cocking his head to the side. "And you're my roommate-"

"Oh, right. Well, I don't play Quidditch so, thanks anyway."

"What do you mean you don't play?" James laughed. "Isn't Marlene on a short list for the Harpies?"

"That's my cousin Gwen." Lily corrected.

"Right," He nodded. "So you're no good at all then?"

"Probably not. I've never played. Never even flied a broom actually." This seemed to shock James more than Lily thought it should.

"What?" This was Sirius, and after quickly glancing at him, she noticed that he and James wore similar expressions. "What do you mean you've never flown a broom before?"

Lily shrugged. "I never really wanted to." She was impersonating a pureblood. A member of a family that she knew for a fact was very into Quidditch. Marlene may not have been on a short list for the Harpies this year, but Lily knew very well that that was where she was headed. There was no way that James and Sirius were going to accept that she'd never flow simply because she wasn't interested, at least, not judging by the expressions they were currently wearing.

"Where's your broom, Prongs?" Sirius asked, grabbing for his pants.

"If he's never flown before, I'm not letting him use my broom. It's the new Comet. We'll have him use one of the school brooms." He too grabbed for his pants.

"What's going on here?"

"You can do this tomorrow after class." Remus sighed, pulling back his comforter and climbing into bed. "If he's never flown, do you really think his first time should be in the dark?"

James and Sirius looked at one another and then James threw his pants back into his trunk. "Alright, first thing after classes then."

"I can't believe you've never flown before."

"You know there's a reason I've never flown." Lily said, suddenly quite nervous about tomorrow for an entirely new reason.

"Don't care." James said.

"It's unacceptable." Sirius agreed.

"It is a bit strange." Peter allowed.

Before Lily could come up with an argument that would get her out of her flight lesson, all four boys had gotten in bed and the lights over their beds went out one by one, till hers was the only one still on. She took a deep breath and shook her head. She would deal with it tomorrow.

With the hangings around their beds drawn shut, Lily felt as though she was about as alone as she was going to be, and she had promised to write to Marlene to let her know how things were going, so she pulled out some parchment, a pencil and climbed into bed.

 _Dear Mars,_

 _First things first, take a deep breath and let it out. I've survived my first day and no one knows that I'm not actually your brother. The spells all stayed in place, my chest is still bound and though someone gave me shit for using the loo to change, it wasn't really a big deal. So far, what everyone seems to be most worried about is that I've never flown on a broom before. I'm starting to think that that's something we should have gone over, not that we had the time._

 _Seems as though I'm more brawn than brain, not that you'll be surprised. I've been placed in Gryffindor and I've got the strangest roommates. They seem nice, just strange. They're clearly very close, and I already feel like some useless fifth wheel that someone just kind of threw at them. You might know two of them, James Potter and Sirius Black? They seemed familiar with your name, if you know why, you should probably let me know._

 _Anyway, how's Beauxbatons? Still insufferable? Which classes are you in this year?_ Hosting Magical Creatures? Advanced Ballroom Dancing? The Art of Keeping House? _Try not to stab yourself in the eye with your quill._

 _That's all for now I suppose,_

 _Your friend who is going to become an Auror no matter the cost,_

 _L_

* * *

 **AN: Alright, we're about to embark on an adventure together because I had half of this written already. My writing is either going to go downhill real fast here, or it shall surprise us all.**


	2. Chapter 2

_"Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult."_  
 _― Charlotte Whitton_

 **Day Two:**

Lily woke up early, luckily earlier than any of her four roommates, which was her plan when she set her alarm for five-thirty. She grabbed her clothes and ran into the loo, making sure to lock the door behind her and then she jumped in the shower, washed her hair and resisted the urge to shave anything in about two minutes and then was fully dressed in her uniform two minutes after stepping out of the shower.

Being a boy was much less time consuming than being a girl. Rinsing her hair had taken her mere seconds, and there were no tangles to work through either. Her hair was too short to get tangly.

Having only spent five minutes in the bathroom, it was now five-thirty-five and she had one hour and twenty-five minutes before she could go to breakfast and three hours and twenty-five minutes before class. The room was still quite when she re-entered, so she picked up her transfiguration book and started re-reading the first chapter. She grabbed a highlighter from her trunk and then sat cross-legged on the end of her bed.

It looked as though most of the year was going to focus almost entirely on Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. Lily had read a little bit about Gamp's Law on her own time, but not nearly enough for a N.E.W.T. level class that was going to focus on it. She wasn't sure how much background knowledge she was going to need in order to perform well in this class, or any of her classes, but she knew that she was going to have a lot of catching up to do regardless. Her classmates had spent the last six years learning everything they needed to know, while she had learned how to rid her future home of restless spirits and de-gnome her garden.

It was almost seven before Remus poked his head out from behind his hangings. He gave her an inquisitive look before pulling his hangings back and hooking them on his bedpost. He swung his legs off the bed and stood up slowly, many of his joints making loud cracking noises as he slowly stretched his arms above his head.

"G'morning." He yawned, stepping into his slippers. "How long have you been awake."

"McGonagall is tough, right?" She answered in response. Remus paused at the foot of her bed on the way to the loo.

"You shouldn't be too worried." He said, looking over her highlighted pages. "She's tough, but she's also fair. If you put in the work, you'll get the grades you want." Lily showed her doubt with an ineloquent huff. "Also, James is top of our year in Transfig, so I'm sure he'd help you out if you bothered him enough."

"Really?" She asked. "He didn't seem thrilled about my being here yesterday."

"I think he's over that already." Remus shrugged. "He's taking you flying this evening, isn't he?" Lily shrugged, she was hoping that no one would remember that. It wasn't only that she had never been flying, she wasn't too keen on heights either. "Is that a highlighter?"

"I know we're supposed to use quills and whatnot, but muggle writing utensils are so much more portable. And it's much harder to spill ink on yourself when it's confined inside of the pen." Remus laughed and nodded.

"I agree," He nodded. "Though, you should know that professors expect essays to be written with a quill."

"I assumed as much. It was the same with my old school."

Remus nodded and then continued on his way to the loo.

"What was your old school?" Lily turned her head towards James' bed to see that he had pushed his hangings open as well.

Lily paused so that she would not blurt out Beauxbatons, "Durmstrang." She said.

"Why'd you leave?"

"S'expelled." She shrugged.

"From Durmstrang?!"

"Don't be impressed with that." She sighed, closing her book and throwing it in her bag. "Breakfast starts at seven, right?" James nodded.

"I will help you with Transfiguration if you need it." He said as he pulled his uniform from his trunk. "Don't know why you're so worried about it, but I'll help you."

"Thanks. And I got expelled because of my grades. Dumbledore let me in on a probationary basis. If I don't keep my grades up then I'm out. And I can't become an Auror if I don't get my N.E.W.T.S."

"You want to be an Auror?" James asked, stepping into his pants. Lily busies herself with the latch on her bag and nodded. "Me too. Sirius is probably going down that track as well. Neither one of us have much choice though, my dad being who he is and all."

Lily nodded as though she understood what he meant, but she made a mental note to ask Marlene who James' father was. Which reminded her, "Can you tell me where the Owlery is?"

He told her where it was and she left the room. She had steeled herself when leaving the dormitory to interact with a whole new batch of boys, but it was still early and there was only one other person in the common room while she was walking through and he didn't pay Lily any mind.

When she reached the Owlery, she scratched out her question about who James' father was and then tied her note on the first owl she found, which happened to be a black, barn owl. He hooted softly and then flew off.

And now she was off to the Great Hall.

Before entering, she drew herself up to full height and took a deep breath. She really hoped Remus or James had made it down already. She wasn't sure if Sirius would let her sit with him and Peter hadn't seemed the interested in talking to her either.

Unfortunately for Lily, none of her roommates had yet to come down for breakfast. She was left to stand awkwardly at the door and debate walking out and waiting for one of them, or sitting somewhere and chancing it. Things had gone smoothly with her roommates, or as smoothly as could be expected, but she didn't know if she was ready for another round of get to know the new kid.

She didn't want to be that weird kid either though, so she took another deep breath and headed for the virtually empty, front of the table. The Ravenclaw table seemed to be the most full, and then the Slytherins. There were only a handful of Gryffindors scattered around, and most of them appeared to be first years upon further inspection. She supposed she wasn't the only one with first day jitters.

The whispers started fairly quickly and Lily didn't know how to handle that. If she was being herself, she would confront these people who thought they became invisible as soon as their hand was covering their mouth. But she wasn't sure how boys handled gossip. She settled for sending the nearest gawker a quick glare, and then filled up her plate with eggs and toast. This was another thing she was glad she didn't have to worry about, she knew how to eat.

She was on her second plate of eggs when Sirius, James, Peter and Remus all sat down around her.

"Morning, McKinnon." Sirius said. "Sleep well?"

Lily was sure that he meant this in some kind of joking manner, so instead of raving about how her bed was basically a cloud and that she could tell that she was going to be sleeping very well as soon as her nerves gave her a break, she gave him a crooked smile. "Who wants to know?"

He smiled back, "No jokes about how you slept with my mother? I set it up perfectly for you."

"Perhaps he's a decent sort of bloke." Peter said. "Or perhaps he knows your mother." Sirius let out a bark of laughter at that and clapped Peter on the back.

"Perhaps he has heard of my mother." Sirius said. "Have you heard of my mother?"

Lily fixed her posture again and then shook her head. She really wished Marlene had thought to give her a better background on the purebloods here. Purebloods were supposed to know things about each other. They were supposed to know the gossip about one another's families. Especially the McKinnons, who were one of the old families.

"Probably not, your dad's got you and your sisters pretty well protected from the rest of the world way north, doesn't he? When's the last time any of you have been to London?"

"My sisters and I go to London all the time in the summer." Lily hadn't expected this. She had assumed that purebloods respected the McKinnons, but his voice sounded more derisive than respectful.

"Why didn't you go to Hogwarts in the first place than?" James asked.

Lily hadn't thought about that. She was almost sure that Mr. McKinnon had graduated from Hogwarts when he was a boy, so why wouldn't Marcus go to Hogwarts as well.

"Because his dad would have found it harder to hide from Dumbledore with his son going to his school." Sirius rolled his eyes and grabbed for a piece of bacon.

"What are you talking about?" Lily asked.

"Nothing. Sorry." Sirius stuffed the entire piece of bacon in his mouth. James looked down at his plate too, but Remus wasn't having any of it.

"Explain yourselves." He said. "You can't say things like that about people's family and then just go mute."

"Yeah." Lily said. "My dad's not hiding us up north, my mum's family is up there-"

"Your dad's brother is an Auror. Their dad is an Auror. His three brothers are Aurors. Your family is about as tied up in the D.M.L.E. as James' family. And his dad is head of the department." Well that answered one question, but raised about half a dozen more.

"You know Marcus wants to be an Auror, right?" James said. "I told you that."

"Doesn't mean his dad's not a coward." Lily narrowed her eyes and then decided that since someone just insulted her 'father' she should storm away.

oOoOo

"Wands away." Professor McGonagall said as she entered the classroom. Lily immediately slid her wand into her robe pocket and pulled out a sheet of parchment and a blue inked pen. She wrote the date in the top right corner and then took a deep breath. She could take notes, notes were easy.

"Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration." She waved her own wand at the blackboard, and her words appeared in a tight, neat scrawl. "Who can tell me the five exceptions?" Lily looked around the room, hoping this was a raise your hand and answer sort of class, not a call on a random student to embarrass them sort of class.

She lucked out again, because McGonagall called on James, who had raised his hand and Lily wrote out the answers as he said them.

"Very good James, five points for Gryffindor. Try not to lose those points later today."

"Yes, ma'am." He and Sirius were sitting behind Lily, and she was doing her best to ignore both of them. Her best was pretty good too, at least until small bits of parchment started hitting her in the back of the head. She turned around and glared at Sirius, who had another piece of paper balled up and ready to throw at her.

"Stop it." She mouthed and then turned back towards the front. He did not 'stop it' however and soon she was surrounded by tiny pits of paper. She turned back around. "What?" She mouthed. Sirius held up his finger and started writing something down. After a moment, he folded it up and then tossed that at her as well. It landed under her chair and she had to stoop down to pick it up.

 _I'm not being a dick, I promise._

Lily crinkled her brow. What was he going on about? Of course he was being a dick. You don't call someone's father a coward unless you're being a dick. You don't accuse a family of hiding do to said cowardice unless you're being a dick.

 _Yeah you are._ She wrote back, tossing it back to him.

"Mr. McKinnon," Lily froze. Every hair on her body stood upright as she slowly turned back towards the front and locked eyes with her professor. "Am I boring you?"

"No, ma'am." She said, clearing her throat to try and keep it from sounding as though she were about to wet herself. "I'm very sorry."

"Was your note to Mr. Black important?"

"No-"

"Could it have waited until later?"

"Yes-"

"Then why did you feel the need to toss it to him now? Interrupting my class in the process."

"Professor, it was my fault." Sirius spoke up, finally too. This was his fault and he should be taking the blame for it.

"You made Marcus throw you a note?"

"Yes." Sirius nodded. "I threw an entire sheet of parchment at him before he even reacted, and that makes him mighty patient if you ask me."

"Well, then I suppose you should both serve detention this Sunday." Sirius opened his mouth to protest, but McGonagall interrupted him. "Sunday morning, Sirius."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Marcus?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Can I get back to teaching now?"

"Yes ma'am." They both said in unison.

oOoOo

Lily had never received detention before. She had come close a few times in her Household Charms class, but that was hardly her fault. Her professor had been trying to explain to her why performing cleaning charms was easier for women than for men. But she had never been admonished for doing something that she knew that she shouldn't have been doing.

She had stormed up to the dormitory after lessons were finally over for the day and threw her books into her trunk, which she also never did. Books were not to be treated poorly, that was one of the lessons she learned at Beauxbatons that she actually agreed with.

"Are you going to talk to me yet?" Sirius asked, as he stormed into the room after her. He had spent the first half the day trying to tell Lily that he wasn't mad at her, and then after she had pretended that she didn't see him or hear him during all of lunch, he had actually been upset with her and settled for trying to explain himself.

"I'm not interested in anything you have to say."

"He didn't mean anything by it." James said, looking more exasperated than anything else. "Sirius has no filter. It's why he's only got three friends."

"Fuck off," Sirius said. "I didn't mean that your father is a coward, I know that's why I said, but that's not what I meant."

"No?"

"Well, it's sort of what I meant, but you can't blame me."

"What the hell kind of apology is this?" Lily asked.

"It's not an apology, would you stop being such a girl?" Lily blanched at that. Was she acting like a girl? She looked at James who mimed strangling Sirius behind his back. Lily didn't find this amusing and so he ran a hand through his hair and looked at the ground.

"Look, with characters like Voldemort hanging about, and more and more people joining him or being sympathetic to his _cause_ , we can't really have people in the middle anymore. We can't have people running off and hiding when there are people who don't have that option. Your dad has power and influence over the magical community, and he needs to be using that power and influence to stop people from being apathetic or scared." Sirius let out a harsh breath. "We need people like your dad to pick up other people's messes."

And Lily found it hard to argue with that. She had never thought of the McKinnons as hiding, or as Mr. McKinnon as someone who could help people like her. She knew that he didn't dislike muggleborns, because he was always friendly with her, though whenever the topic of the war came up, he did seem to disappear.

"This started happening about five years ago, yes?" Sirius nodded. "My dad already had five kids then. He's not apathetic, but he's not willing to do anything, or say anything that would put any of us in danger. That's not cowardice, that's being a father."

* * *

 **AN: I don't know why this ended up being all about Sirius and Lily. I promise to make the next chapter more Jily oriented. I figured I needed some more background information and whatnot. Also, McGonagall is a scary teacher and I would also fear her.**

 **Reviews are lovely!**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Sorry for the wait, I made this one a few hundred words longer and added partial nudity to atone for it. Enjoy.**

* * *

"You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation."  
― Brigham Young

 **Day Three:**

 _Dear L_

 _I suppose you may have some questions by now. The Potters aren't close with my particular branch of the family tree, though they are familiar with us by name. And Everyone knows the Blacks. But I'll do one at a time._

 _Potters: They're like a super old family that has always stuck up for muggles and muggleborns. From what I've heard, James is sort of a showboat, but he's a 'decent boy' (my father's words.) His father is the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, so hopefully your future boss, and he's been very influential in the implementation of legislation protecting the rights of muggleborns because that's what Potters do. Now Mrs. Potter, she's a hoot and half. She is on the Wizengamot and used to be the undersecretary of the Minister of Magic for almost three decades, so you think she'd be all serious and whatnot, but she exactly the opposite of what you'd expect someone in her line of work to be. Very interesting people from what I've heard._

 _Blacks: Now this family is the exact opposite, which is why it gave me a moment of pause when you grouped their names together. Sirius was always said to be the black sheep of the family, but I find it hard to believe that he would be rooming with James civilly. Anyway, the Black are big supporters of You-Know-Who, one of his great aunts even tried to pass a bill that would make it legal to hunt muggles. Really,_ really, _horrible stuff._

 _And now my family: I don't know if you know this, but my dad hasn't talked to his brothers in a very long time. His sister (Gwen's mum) is the only one of his siblings that really keeps in touch. They wanted him to become and Auror, so he became a Healer, they wanted him to speak out against You-Know-Who, and then he moved us all up here in the middle of nowhere. It's a bit of a touchy subject with some of the decent purebloods and I shouldn't have sent you out there without telling you that. We've tried telling him that we want him to stand against the death eaters, but Jeremy is three, and, well I can't really blame him for wanted to make sure that we're safe._

 _Anyway, yes, Beauxbatons still sucks and my least horrible class is about child care and that's only because I'm a sucker for children. (My most horrible class is entitled, '_ Training your servants.' _The first chapter was about how locking house elves in a cupboard for a few hours is a good way to teach the young ones when talking is not acceptable.)_

 _Love (your friend who tried her damnedest to get you on a broom),_

 _Mars_

"I really don't know what you think you're going to accomplish." Lily said, pushing her short hair back away from her face even though it was now too short to be in her eyes. It was a habit she'd had her whole life and one she didn't think was going away anytime soon.

"I'm going to accomplish getting you on a broom." James said, once again pushing an old school broom out for her to take.

"You don't think people have tried to get me on a broom before? I've got five siblings and Gwen Jones is my cousin. They all play Quidditch."

"You will learn to fly a broom."

"I know how." Lily rolled her eyes.

"Really?"

"Well," She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled a bit. "I've seen people do it. I've been told how to do it. So yes, I _know_ how."

"Alright," James smirked at her. "Tell me what you do first."

"First you have to get the broom in your hand." James held the broom out for a third time. Lily felt like rolling her eyes again, but this time, she took the broom.

"And then what?"

"Well then you get on the broom but I don't want to do that."

"Is the heights? Are you afraid of heights?"

Lily shook her head. "I'm not afraid." She didn't think boys would admit to being afraid. She however had no problem telling people that she was frightened of heights.

"Really?"

Well, if he was going to goad her, "I'm terrified." James laughed and Lily's smile got bigger.

"Alright, well you don't have to get very high off the ground to actually be flying. You can just get up like one or two feet, can you do that?"

Lily pressed her lips together and tried to keep from smiling, because of course she could do that. Probably. She was actually starting to think that James was the reason she was smiling so much. That knocked the smile off her face. "I can try." She said, reluctantly.

"Then do it." He said in quite the patronizing voice. Lily took a moment to mock him and then swung one leg over the broom and gripped the handle tightly.

"Loosen your grip."

"Nah, I'm good."

"Look, the only way you're going to fall off is if you don't listen to me." Lily huffed, but loosened her grip, only slightly, but she still loosened it. "Alright, now on my count, I want you to kick off the ground, just a little bit. One, two, three!" Lily kicked off the ground and was surprised at how quickly she shot into the air. She was only three or four feet above where she had been a moment ago, but her feet were now dangling and her grip tightened again so she was now white-knuckling the handle.

"Loosen your grip." James reminded her, not seeming to notice that she was on the verge of having a panic attack.

"I can't get down," Lily shouted. "I can't get down!" She started kicking her legs and reaching towards the ground, however when she went to tip her feet towards the ground, she pulled the broom handle towards her chest. She could feel the broom start vibrating and she shot up less than a foot before James had jumped up and grabbed the handle, pulling her back down to the ground. Lily fell off the broom and into James, causing the both of them to fall in a heap to the ground.

They laid there for a moment, both a bit winded.

"I thought you knew how to ride a broom."

"I thought you were teaching me how to ride a broom."

"Pulling the handle up, makes the broom go up. It's quite simple."

"You'd think." Lily agreed. "But I did not like that at all."

"I could tell." James shook his head and laughed. "You weren't kidding about the heights thing, were you? How do you climb up stairs? Or stand on balconies."

"That's different, it's when there's nothing under my feet when it starts to bother me. Or when what's under my feet doesn't have anything under it. Okay, so, some balconies scare me." He laughed again and Lily smiled. Damn him.

"Hey," He stopped smiling and sat up. "You're not still sore with Sirius are you? About him saying what he did about your dad?"

Lily sighed and pushed herself up so she was on her elbows. "Honestly, I'm more annoyed with him about everything he did after that." James grinned and nodded. "And you can't tell him that I'm saying this, but I understand where's he coming from. I even agree with him sometimes you know. People are dying and he's- well, he's hiding. And I know why, I know it's because my little brothers are three and five and they can't do anything to protect themselves, but- I don't know. He's my dad though, so I can be upset with him."

"I get that." James nodded. "And so does Sirius for what it's worth. He talks shit about his family all the time, but say one bad thing about his little brother and he'll probably clock you."

"What did you say about his brother?"

"I didn't-" James sighed. "I said I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be a death eater." Lily gasped and hit James on the arm.

"That's a horrible thing to say about someone's brother." It wasn't until she saw the look on James' face and replayed what she had just done in her head that she realized that swatting at him and using inflection as she had was very _feminine._ "I mean, from what I've heard about the Blacks, maybe not surprising." She would just pretend it didn't happen and maybe James would too.

"Yeah, Reg is probably a death eater by now, but it's still a sore spot for Sirius so don't mention it. They used to be close."

Lily nodded empathetically, but then she shook her head. "Wait, what do you mean he's probably already a death eater? We're in school. We don't go to school with death eaters."

James gave her yet another funny look. "I promise you that we do. Nott, Rosier, Dolohov… they're all death eaters."

"You mean they will be-"

"No. They are, right now."

"Then why aren't they expelled?"

"Well, they haven't done anything that anyone can prove." James shrugged. "Besides, Dumbledore is hoping that if they stay here longer, some of the will change their minds."

"Right, like Voldemort is going to let them change their minds." She scoffed and James grinned.

"You used his name."

"Sure did." Lily said, nodding her head. "I'm going to fight this guy one day pretty soon, and I'm not going to be calling him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named when I do. That's ridiculous."

"I agree." He said. With another strange look, he said, "You're an odd bloke, Marcus."

oOoOo

Lily was asked by Remus to join him in the stands during the Quidditch tryouts. "James and Sirius make me and Peter come along, but Peter likes going and is always down on the field."

"You don't like going?" Remus shook his head.

"Flying would be fun if it didn't make me so sore."

"Was that a jab at me because James told you I fell of the broom today?"

"Yes. But also flying makes me sore." Remus laughed. "We can bring our Transfiguration homework and I'll help you with it."

"There's no need to bribe me. I was going to come with you." Lily grabbed her book bag. "But now we're definitely doing that." She laughed and shook her head. "How sad is it that we've only had one class of Transfiguration and I already am easily bribed with an offer of help on the homework?"

"Yeah, we're going to be able to get you to do anything, aren't we?"

"Yes."

They walked down to the stands and nabbed a couple of seats at almost the very top of the stands, sitting on the benches sideways so they could use the benches behind them as a table. They didn't really pay much attention to the tryouts, and split their time between talking and doing their homework. Lily with her pencil and Remus with his self-refilling quill.

"It's not so bad when it refills itself." Lily said, having took the quill to try it out. "I mean, I still make a mess with it-"

"I didn't notice that you were left handed." Remus pointed at her hand. Lily held it up and nodded. Even though she had only started writing with the quill a few words ago, there were already streaks of ink across the bottom right corner of her palm.

"It's a pain."

"You need to get some instant drying ink." Remus said.

Lily was about to ask where she could get some of that, because really, she had had just about enough of getting ink stains all over her hand. However, before she could open her mouth, her attention was captured by something on the field.

There had been shouting the entire time of course, mostly James', but Sirius got a few good shouts in as well, but this was different. It was as though the field had suddenly erupted and everyone was trying to shout over each other, grappling to be heard.

"What the hell?" Lily stood up to get a better view.

"Oh Merlin." Remus sighed, starting his way down towards the field. "It's the Slytherins."

"What?"

"They do this, every single year and James lets it get to him, _every single year_."

"What did they do?"

"They show up and they add their two sense and normally they talk some Hufflepuff into trying out for our team, or they jinx some of the school brooms to only fly backwards or some other stupid, inane thing that starts a prank war between our houses that lasts the rest of the year. And I know you don't know James and Sirius very well yet, but they take this very personally and very seriously."

"It seems harmless."

"Not to James, and because of that, not to Sirius. James loves Quidditch more than just about anything, and now that he's captain, he takes their stupid jabs even harder than before. It's all childish, but- I don't know. It could be worse."

When they got closer to the field they could see more of what was actually going on. James was standing in front of a group of younger years with his broom in one hand and a school broom in the other hand. It was snapped in half, a few splinters keeping the different pieces together.

"Who are they?"

"Evan Rosier." Remus sighed. Lily could tell by the tone of his voice that this particular Slytherin had a history with them.

"And here comes the fourth one." Evan said, turning his sharp gaze towards Remus. "And now we have the entire set of Marauders." Lily wasn't sure what that meant, but he said it like a taunt. There were two other boys with Evan that Remus hadn't thought important enough to name. One had shoulder length black hair and wasn't meeting anyone's eyes, or giving himself the opportunity to. He kept his eyes glued to the ground. The other boy was taller and broader than Evan. If Lily had thought that Sirius was too broad to only be seventeen- well he had nothing on this kid. Lily wouldn't be surprised if he had been held back a few years.

"I think you've had your fun, Rosier." James said sternly, gripping his broom more tightly and tossing the broken school broom to the side.

"I don't think so." He looked up at Lily now, his brow cocking up. "They aren't shunning you? I didn't think they had any room left in their strange, polymorphous relationship."

"I think you mean polygamous." Lily said, narrowing her eyes. "And you know, they kind of have the view point of the more the merrier." Sirius let out a quick, sharp laugh and nodded.

"Absolutely, Marcus." He winked at him and Evan sighed.

"And you can leave now, yes?" James used his broom to point off the field.

"I had a whole thing planned." He feigned picking dirt out from under his fingernails. "But now that I've seen what you're working with this year and I have to say, it's so pathetic that I can't even find it in me to sabotage you."

"You just knocked one of our best players off their broom!"

"I can't believe one of you 'best' players rides a school broom still."

"Shut up, Rosier." A red headed boy spat. He was holding his arm and had blood dripping down from his nose. Lily wasn't sure how she hadn't noticed him before.

"Piss poor." The monster student standing next to Evan said in a low, gravelly voice. "That's how."

"Fuck you." Sirius said, taking a step forward. James reached out.

"Not now." He took a deep breath and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Rosier, Snape, Dolohov, get off my pitch or when Slytherin has the field in a couple hours, I'm make sure to lay down some permanent sticking charms before I leave and drop a few dungbombs in the locker room. Don't fuck with my tryouts."

"Someone still a bit sore that they didn't win the house cup last year."

"Sorry, I had been under the impression that we were going to actually play by the rules. I won't be making that mistake again."

oOoOo

Lily stood in front of the loo mirror when she finally made it back to the dormitory after dinner that night. She still wasn't used to her new face. Her sharp jaw line, her hooded brow, short hair, Adam's apple… it was just all so strange. She sighed and ran a lock of hair between two of her fingers. It would grow back, a simple spell would hasten the process to about ten seconds and yet she missed it anyway.

"Oi," Lily turned around to see Sirius standing in the doorway.

"I was just finishing up. It's all yours-"

"I'm sorry I called your dad a coward." He said, now pressing his lips together and looking at Lily's left ear. She got the feeling that apologizing wasn't something that he normally did.

"I'm sorry I was overly sensitive about it." There was no need to prolong this uncomfortable exchange so Lily just accepted the apology. Had it been Marlene who was apologizing, she would have dragged the whole thing out, seen what she could get from the other girl before saying that it was all fine.

"Yeah, well-" He scratched at his head. "It's family. I get weird about my family sometimes. My brother anyway."

"It's alright. Let's just forget about it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Kay. You done in here?"

"Yep, all yours." They brushed shoulders when they passed each other and Lily quickened her pace. Boys were strange, foreign creatures and she was definitely going to get caught.

"You two made up all nice?" James asked when Lily reached her bed. His bed just happened to be the one right next to his.

"You send him in there?"

"He was going to wait till tomorrow." James shrugged.

"We're good." Lily nodded.

"I owe you an apology too." James said, a smirk forming.

"For what?"

"Making you get on a broom." Lily laughed and chucked her potions textbook at him. He caught it easily and laughed at her.

"Watch it McKinnon. I need to keep in peak physical condition so we can trounce Slytherin in two weeks."

"Say 'peak physical condition' one more time." Sirius said, walking back into the room.

"You're just jealous that I'm stronger than you."

"In your dreams maybe." Sirius laughed, pulling his shirt off and tossing it at the foot of his bed. "You're a twig, prongs." Sirius flexed and James rolled his eyes.

"I'm the lead chaser on the team, Sirius-"

"I'm a beater!"

"I think I've got _some_ upper body strength. 'Sides, I was able to pin you this summer."

"You two still wrestle?" Remus asked, sounding exhausted. "Aren't you a bit old for that?"

"Hush, or we'll come after you." Sirius turned to glare at him. "Pushups?" He asked when he turned back to James.

"You're on." He pulled his own shirt off and it landed in a pool at Lily's feet. She quickly averted her gaze and bit down on her tongue. They were making things difficult for her. Very, _very_ difficult.

* * *

 **AN: Reviews are sublime.**


	4. Chapter 4

"Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men."  
― Joseph Conrad, Chance

 **Day Four:**

Lily hadn't showered since she arrived at Hogwarts and she was starting to itch. She had tried staying up extra late, getting up extra early, but it seemed as though one of her roommates was always up. James got up earlier than anyone should in Lily's opinion, and Remus was up reading until Lily fell asleep waiting for her chance to sneak in there.

It was Sunday morning though, surely James would take today to sleep in, surely they would let her have just ten minutes alone in the bathroom where she could stop pretending to be a boy and scrub the layer of grim from her skin before people noticed that she was really starting to stink.

She pulled back her hangings, and mercifully James' were still shut. She looked around the room and saw that the rest of the boys' hangings were still resting peacefully around their beds. Lily sighed (quietly) and slipped out of bed.

After gathering her soap, towel and a change of clothes, she tip-toed into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She felt a genuine sense of relief as the latch fell into place and she wasted no time in stripping off her night clothes and turning on the water. She let the room fill up with steam for a moment before she stepped under the stream and almost moaned at how good the hot water felt prickling at her skin.

Yesterday had been a weird day. She had accidentally flirted with James when he was only trying to be nice, she had an extremely awkward conversation with Sirius and then she had had to watch two shirtless blokes compete over who was stronger. She hoped she had handled that situation correctly. She hoped no one would think that anything was up with her, that she was sufficiently pulling off this whole, 'acting like a bloke' thing.

She had finished washing her hair when someone tried to open the door to the loo. Lily froze for a moment and everything was quiet. Then there was a click, and the door opened. Lily had pulled the shower curtain closed when she got in the shower, and she did a mental check of everything that was in the bathroom right now. Nothing incriminating.

"There's only one bathroom," James' voice said. She watched his shadowy figure through the curtain as he walked towards the toilet. "We don't lock the door."

Lily cleared her throat. "Sorry. House full of sisters. Force of habit."

"S'alright." James said. Lily pushed herself as far away from the shower curtain as she could, not that James could see anything through it, but because she wanted to put as much distance between the two of them as she could while she was naked and he was peeing, it seemed like the polite thing to do.

James flushed the toilet and then started back towards the door. "I'm going to breakfast in a few minutes, you want me to wait for you?"

"I'll just meet you down there." She said, stepping back under the stream of water.

"Alright." James closed the door behind him and lily let out a large breath. She quickly shut off the water and then peaked her head out of the shower. She had left her clean clothes on the counter, and her towel was right on top of them. She looked down at her naked self, and then at the door. She had changed the shape of her shoulders, and her jaw, and her brow, she had chopped off her hair and changed her posture, but under neither her clothes, she was still very much _not_ a bloke.

She braced herself and then walked as quickly as she could without slipping on the flagstone floor, over to the counter. She quickly dried off, slipped on her panties and pulled on a pair of boxers over top of them. Then she pulled out her wrap, and encircled it around her chest a few times. Once she was sufficiently flat chested, she pulled on her shirt and then allowed herself to slow down. All the incriminating bits were covered now.

She was towel drying her hair when Peter walked into the bathroom. He nodded sleepily at her as he walked to the toilet. Lily bit her lip and pulled her pants on quickly, tucked in her boxers, then gathered up her dirty clothes and left the room before she saw anything she didn't want to see.

That was definitely more difficult than it had to be.

OOoOo

After breakfast with James, during which he talked exclusively about who had tried out yesterday and how almost all of them were hopeless, he went out to the Quidditch pitch to prepare for the final day of tryouts, and she went up to the Owlery to write Marlene a letter.

 _M-_

 _I took a shower this morning and two of my four roommates walked in on me. One while I was in the shower, and one while I was getting dressed. Luckily no one saw anything but it was all just luck. James said we aren't allowed to lock the door because there's only one bathroom and- Gah! I'm never going to shower again. It's too risky with all of these boys coming and going as they please._

 _Also, they keep taking their shirts off and I don't know how to properly act like a girl around half naked boys let alone how blokes are supposed to act around each other when they are half naked. Aren't they going to think it's weird that I'm never half naked? I mean every single one of them sleeps in their boxers and then there's me who sleeps in a full pajama outfit._

 _Please don't tease me. Just try to help somehow._

 _-L_

She sent off the letter with no real hope of Marlene helping her with her problems. There wasn't really anything that she could do. Also, when coming up with this plan, Marlene had brought up the problem of showering while sharing a room with all blokes and Lily had blown her off completely with a flippant, "I'll work it all out when I get there." She was most certainly going to get an earful from Marlene.

She headed off to the library after that. Hoping to get a start on all the extra studying that she was going to have to do if she had any chance in hell at keeping up with the lessons this term. Transfigurations wasn't the only class that she was worried about, though having Remus and James to help her with that class made it slightly less intimidating.

She settled down at a table that was in the potions section and gathered the textbooks for years one through three. Not wanting to be too ambitious she only grabbed three of the books she planned on close reading, otherwise she would have grabbed all six books at once. She also didn't want anyone to see her with them. She could tell them that she was getting a jumpstart on studying for N.E.W.T.S. but she didn't really want to be _that_ person. The person that starts studying for an exam that wasn't until next term. She also didn't want word to get back to Sirius and James that she was _that_ person because she didn't think they would have thought it was cool. They might actually stop being so nice to her and she didn't want that.

But she really couldn't be too worried about that because she was here to get an education so that she could become an auror. That had to be her top priority or what was the point of all of this? With that in mind, she opened the first book and began to read.

 _There are more than three dozen different uses for a single newt. Let's start with the eye, which is one of the most common potion ingredients-_

"Excuse me."

- _that you will be using this year. It's one of the most versatile parts of the newt, with five individual uses-_

"Excuse me."

Lily looked up and saw the black haired boy from the Quidditch pitch yesterday. "Yes?"

"You're sitting at my table." He said, glaring at her second year potions book as if it had personally offended him. She wanted to shift her book bag so that it was covering the title, but it was too late for that. At least he didn't know that she was reading the first year book.

"This is a library table," Lily shook her head and looked back down at the text. "You can't claim the tables."

"I'm the only one who ever sits here. So it may be unofficial, but if you hadn't only been here for four days, then you would know that it's my table."

"Well, I'm only using half of it." She motioned to the empty other half of the table. "You're more than welcome to use it. Or one of the four other empty tables in the immediate area."

He stood there for a moment, not knowing how to handle her.

"What's your name again?"

"Marcus McKinnon. You?"

"Severus Snape." He cleared his throat and then set his stuff down on the other side of the table. "Why do you have that out?" He asked, pointing at the second year textbook.

"I said you could sit with me, I didn't say that we had to talk. I'm trying to study."

"Sorry."

She didn't really like this boy. He had been on the pitch yesterday with that other dreadful boy who had broken a broom and then called her roommates polygamous, marauders. He hadn't asked her why she had the book out to be mean however, and then she felt rude when she snubbed him out and he apologized.

She sighed, "I'm really behind in a lot of subjects, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to look over the previous material."

"You're going to look over all six years of old material for every class?"

"I said a lot of subjects, not all of them. I'm good with Charms and Herbology." One had to be well acquainted with plants at Beauxbatons. One would think that Potions would also be something they would need to know, but the Headmistress of yesteryears had deemed it too dangerous for such delicate creatures, or you know, girls.

Severus snorted and Lily narrowed her eyes at him. She shouldn't have said anything.

"You're not going to learn everything about potions just by reading the textbooks."

"I said I was behind, not that I didn't know anything."

"Right. So what are you reading right now?"

"Who the hell made you an expert on the subject of potions anyway? I can study however I want."

His lips curled up and she swore that she had never seen anyone look so smug in her entire life. "I'm top of our year at Potions. If you go up the trophy room, you'll see a plaque with my name on it-" Lily didn't like smug people very much.

"That's all very nice for you, and I hope you enjoy your time at the top while it lasts, because I fully intend on taking the top spot from you." And even though leaving meant that the smarmy, prat got what he wanted, she packed up her books and left the library to go and study on her bed.

OOoOo

Lily was leafing through the last few pages of the second year textbook when her roommates rejoined her in the dormitory. Sirius walked across the room and fell face first onto his bed, not noticeably bothered by the fact that he was covered in dirt and it was getting all over his bed sheets.

James looked positively giddy. "We're going to win this year." He did a strange little leap that made Lily's brow shoot up. "I can feel it. I mean did you _see_ how he was flying?"

There was a muffled noise coming from Sirius.

"I know!" James shouted. Remus and Peter walked in after them, looking neither overly exhausted nor giddy, but some healthy medium.

"Tomas is telling everyone that he's your new prodigy." Remus said, looking somewhat amused.

Sirius rolled over on his side. "I'm going to have to pound that kid before our first game."

"He's just excited, his head will deflate in a few days." James waved away Sirius's comment. "Besides, did you _see_ him fly?"

"Yes James, we all saw him fly." Peter said. "And he's very good. We're definitely going to win the Quidditch cup this year."

"Maybe that will get McGonagall off your back." Remus said. "Not that it matters much since this is our last year, but if you beat Slytherin in a couple weeks, she might go easy on all of us."

"Why would she do that?" Lily asked. The other four seemed to have forgotten about her, or just hadn't noticed that she was in the room because they all seemed rather surprised to see her sitting on her bed.

James shook his head. "McGonagall is really into Quidditch, she used to play back in the day." He looked at the books in her hands. "Marcus, have you been studying all day?"

"Not the entire day," She shrugged. "I wrote a letter earlier…"

"We've only had one day of classes; you know that right?" Peter asked, giving her a funny look.

"I know."

"Alright, McKinnon?" James laughed, running a hand through his hair.

Lily looked down and shook her head. "I'm fine you prats."

He laughed again and then turned his attention to Sirius. "Go and take a shower would you? You're stinking up the entire room."

"And who's fault is that? We could have been done ages ago, but noooooo. You wanted to have a practice right after tryouts so you could play with your new teammates."

"Yes, and you could have showered in the locker room."

"Well, I didn't."

"We know, Padfoot." Peter said. "Every single person you walked past in the common room knows it."

"Shove off, Pete." Sirius rolled off his bed, pulled his shirt over his head and then tossed it at Peter. Peter recoiled away from the offending object and kicked it back at Sirius, who was now toeing off his shoes and throwing them at James. He was going for his pants when James finally stopped him.

"Alright, enough stripping." Lily was looking down at her textbook determinedly, but she was pretty sure that James had cast a look in her general direction. "Just go and wash up so we can all go and eat dinner, yeah?"

Sirius tossed one of his socks over at Peter and then walked into the loo. Lily looked up and hoped that her face wasn't red, she _really_ hoped that her face wasn't red.

James looked over at her again and gave her an awkward little grin and then looked away.

If her face hadn't been red before, it certainly was now. What in the bloody hell was that?

* * *

 **AN: Reviews?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Day Five:**

Lily was pretty sure that James thought that Lily was very shy about nakedness. Ever since his comment last night, it seemed as though all the boys were getting dressed in the loo, and if they were sleeping with their shirts off, Lily didn't know because when they closed their hangings last night, they were almost fully clothed. This was different than it had been, so the only thing Lily could think of to explain this, was that James had said something to the other blokes and that was humiliating. Helpful, sure. But humiliating.

So the next morning, the blokes started getting ready for classes and Remus looked over at her, trying to be flippant. "You want to take a shower first, Marcus?" Lily thought about asking them what the hell was going on, why they were acting like this, but she did really want to take a shower because even though she showered yesterday, she didn't know how long this weird behavior was going to last.

"Sure." She shrugged, grabbing her clothes and heading to the loo, all the while trying not to look too giddy.

She took a quick shower, but nobody walked in on her, and it was probably the greatest shower she'd ever taken in her life.

When she left the loo, Sirius was waiting impatiently at the door.

"It's about time? What were you doing in there?" He pushed past her.

"Alright," She threw her night clothes at the base of her bed and looked around the room. "What's going on?"

"Nothing." Peter said quickly. "Sirius just hates Mondays."

"Yeah, he's a real pain at the start of the week." Remus agreed.

"And during the middle of the week." Peter narrowed his brow.

"And when he's hungry." James added.

"And-"

"Alright, so that's what we're going with? Sirius is just moody?" Lily asked, trying really hard to refrain from putting her hand on her hip and cocking her head. They were already acting odd around her.

"What else would it be?" James asked, putting all the chips in her hand. She could come right out and say what she thought was going on, but then she would have to have some kind of explanation as to why she didn't want them in the bathroom when she showered, and why her face turned red when they walked around the room half naked, and she didn't have one.

"I'm not the one acting strangely." She decided on instead. It wasn't exactly true, but they were currently acting more strangely than she was, so they couldn't exactly argue the point. "I'll see you at breakfast?" She asked, looking around at the three of them again.

"I'm actually ready to go." Remus said, picking up his bag. "You ready for Charms?"

And they walked down to the Great Hall talking about the upcoming Charms lesson. This was one of the few classes that Lily wasn't at all worried for. They taught Charms at Beauxbatons, mostly cleaning charms and what not, but she had always excelled and the theory of it all came easy to her.

"Where is the Charms classroom?" Lily asked when they took their seats across from one another at the Gryffindor table.

"Third floor." Remus said. "Right above the kitchens actually, not that you would know where that is."

Lily was going to say something about how it was on the second floor, but she decided against it. "And then we have Potions."

"That's in the Dungeons." Remus nodded. "It's always a bit chilly down there unless we're actually making a potion, and it's the first day of NEWT level classes, so Slughorn will probably have us brew something."

"I have to do well in Potions."

"I thought you had to do well in Transfiguration?"

"Of course, but my pride is riding on me doing well in Potions. I met Severus Snape in the library and- I just want to- I really want to-"

"Knock the smarmy out of him?" Remus asked, amused.

"Exactly." Lily nodded. "Apparently I was sitting at his table, and he gave me a hard time for looking over the past material. I didn't go here though, I just wanted to know what you had all learned before going to class and he- he was just-"

"Acting like a pretentious git?" Remus supplied.

"Exactly." Lily nodded and Remus laughed.

The others joined them and Sirius seemed to have gotten over his bad attitude and has stuffing food into his mouth, not paying much attention to Lily, but she couldn't honestly say that she minded.

OOoOo

Charms was wonderfully easy and Professor Flitwick was, in Lily's punny opinion, absolutely charming. He came up to maybe her waist, and looked and spoke nothing like the other professors at school, but Lily was almost certain that he would be one of her favorites.

"10 points to Gryffindor, Mr. McKinnon!" He exclaimed excitedly when Lily was one of the first to charm her rabbit to alternate between the exact shades of blue and red that he had indicated to the class at the front of the room.

"You weren't kidding when you said you were good at Charms." Remus laughed, as his rabbit hopped about his desk with purple fur.

"Charms is my favorite." Lily nodded. "Charms, I understand. I promise you'll do better than me in almost everything else." Remus laughed again.

"What was the last school you went to?" Sirius asked.

"Dumstrung." Lily said. "But I didn't really try very hard."

"I don't try very hard and I'm not entirely incompetent."

"Maybe not, but my rabbit isn't greenish." Lily nodded at his sickly looking rabbit. Sirius scoffed and shrugged.

"Charming color is a useless skill anyway." So maybe not entirely over his morning funk. Lily couldn't decide if he suddenly had a reason to dislike her, or if was just in a bad mood and taking it out on her. She hadn't remembered doing anything that should make him upset. She just rolled her eyes and turned back to her correctly colored rabbit.

OOoOo

Draught of the Living Dead was going to kill Lily. Some might find this ironic, but Lily was not in the mood for irony.

She had made simple healing potions, she had made cleaning potions, she had even snuck down to the potions classroom with Marlene one time to make a headache tonic, which was in all likelihood the hardest potion that she'd ever made, but that was mostly to them making it in the dark because they were afraid of getting caught. The lights were, dim here in the classroom, but she couldn't blame poor eyesight on the difficulty of this potion.

"I don't expect any of you to be able to make this potion perfectly." Slughorn reminded them as he peered into a Slytherins cauldron and flinched. "I just want to assess where you are all at so that I can decide where we should start."

Lily looked over the list of instruction and then turned to the table behind her where Sirius and Remus were working on their potions. "How are your potions coming along?" She asked, peering into Remus's cauldron. His potion seemed to look the same as Lily's, which she found encouraging.

"Why don't you turn around and work on your own-" Remus elbowed Sirius in the side.

"I've got no clue what I'm doing." Remus shrugged.

"If this wasn't so important to me," Lily said to Sirius, motioning over her shoulder towards her potion. "I would ask you what crawled up your bum, but I have a potion to brew so I'll have to ask you later." When she turned back to face her potions, she caught sight of Severus Snape from across the room and he cocked a brow at her. She returned with a bright smile, unwilling to let him know that she was struggling. For all he knew, she was having such an easy time with this potion that she had time to converse with her friends. His smug look turned into a scowl and Lily felt slightly victorious, well, until it was time to complete the next step of the potion.

Professor Slughorn was making his rounds and stopped in front of her just as she was about to add the sloth brain. He peered into her cauldron and nodded in approval. "I was worried about letting you into my class after viewing your transcript, but this is excellent work Mr. McKinnon." Lily had almost forgot herself and told him that she had always received high marks in all her classes; it was a good thing he threw in her name at the end there.

"Right, well, I realized that there's not much you can do without any NEWTS and decided to get my act together."

"Well," The Professor beamed at him. "Then I'm also impressed with your attitude. What is it that you want to do, Marcus?"

"I want to be an Auror, sir." Lily said resolutely. It felt good to say it aloud and have people believe her, to have them believe _in_ her simply because she wasn't at Beauxbaton, because she was a Hogwarts student.

"Very noble. Especially in a time like this."

"Well, my mum always says, if you have the ability to change things for the better, than that's what you should be doing."

"I haven't seen your mum in years!" Slughorn laughed. "I think it was right after your eldest brother was born, what was his name again?"

"Jeremy." She supplied, hoping that he wouldn't ask for information she couldn't provide. She knew a lot about Marlene's family, having been best friends with the girl for the last six years, but she had only met her older siblings a handful of times and if they weren't all Aurors, Lily didn't know what they did.

"Right, well, your parents have so many children that it's difficult for me to keep track. Though your dad was one of my favorite students back in the day." He looked at her potions and gave the sloth brain a nod. "I think you might want to add that." Lily scooped up the pieces in her hands and dropped them into her cauldron, charming her ladle to stir this way and that the written number of times. "Anyway, I wanted to invite you to a little get together I'm hosting. Some of my old students will be there, and some of your fellow classmates. If you want to be an Auror, there are a few people I could introduce you to that could help you out."

Lily blanched and then shook her head. "That would be amazing, Professor."

"Friday at eight." He smiled, seeming pleased that she was so eager.

"Thank you!" He nodded and then took his leave. Lily turned around to gush to Remus, but found him snickering with Sirius.

"Looks like you just got invited to the Slug Club." Remus laughed.

"Didn't take you for a teacher's pet, McKinnon." Sirius added.

"Slug Club?" Lily repeated. "What's that?"

"Slughorn only ever invites his favorite students, whether it be because their good at Potions, like you, or because their parents run the ministry or some such nonsense. It's usually because you have interesting parents." Remus explained. "James and Sirius were both invited to join a few years ago, but Sirius isn't welcomed anymore."

"I only went once, and it was only so he would stop asking me to come. He should have known better."

"You set the drapes on fire." Remus chided.

"Yes, and now he doesn't ask me if I want to go to his stupid club meetings anymore."

James and Peter were working at the table behind Remus and Sirius and James spoke up. "Don't listen to him." He threw a piece of his sloth brain at Sirius's head. "I've only been to a couple meetings, but he does get some interesting guests every now and then."

"Would you come with me?" Lily asked, glad she wasn't a girl for the first time, if she was this might have been misconstrued as a date proposal.

James laughed. "I don't think so. He gets interesting guests sometimes, but that never makes up for the fact that every student he invites is a pompous, ambitions, arse-kisser."

"No exceptions." Sirius added, quirking a brow at her.

OOoOo

 _L_

 _I did some snooping for you, because I love you. Dad said that there are special bathrooms on the fourth floor for prefects, like really nice bathrooms with giant tubs and lots of salts and bubbles. Find one of those, and you won't have to worry about anyone walking in on you. You'll have to worry about being caught using the prefect's bathroom, and since you're not allowed there, you might get detention, but no one will see your… less masculine parts._

 _And as for how to behave when you see a half-naked bloke, I expect you're supposed to act how we act when we see my twat of a brother walking around half naked. Like you really don't give a shit. As long as you don't make things weird, they'll have no reason to. So don't draw attention to the fact that you wear clothes to bed and they don't._

 _You'll be pleased to know that Alice just announced her engagement to Frank Longbottom, and so we have something fun to look forward to come winter break. Until then however, I'm going to continue to slowly pull all of my hair out as I listen to these daft old birds explain the different between salad forks, dessert forks, and witch fork you should use to stab yourself in the face with. Bah._

 _Wishing I came with you,_

 _M_

 _OOoOo_

After finishing up classes for the day, Lily went straight to the library and got to work on her homework. Nothing was too hard today, but she also hadn't had Transfiguration; that was tomorrows first class however so she was going to do some revising.

She had just finished up her Charms assignment, and was pulling out her Potions textbook when a boy with a blue tie pulled out the chair across from her and took a seat.

"Name's Benjy Fenwick." He said, sticking out his hand.

Lily was a bit startled by his sudden appearance, but smiled politely and stuck her hand out as well. "L- Marcus. Marcus McKinnon." She tried to hide her horror at almost having told this bloke that her name was Lily. What would he have even thought if she had said that?

If he thought anything about her slip up, he didn't let on. "My mates and I," He said, nodding right towards a table full of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. "We have a bit of a bet going, and we'd like you to clear it up."

Lily scrunched her brow together, but nodded.

"Well, see, my friend Amos believes that you were kicked out of your old school for attacking a professor while you were high after a potions accident. At least, that's what his cousin told him." Benjy rolled his eyes. "But my mum told me that it was because you got into a fight with another student and he ended up in St. Mungo's for almost a month. Which is it?"

Lily couldn't help but laugh and shake her head. "Oh, wow. I don't think I want to choose between them, they're both such fantastic stories." Benjy looked put out already.

"Then what was it? How did you get kicked out of _Durmstrang_?"

"The usual way." Lily shrugged. "I never went to class. It's a bit more boring than what you and your mate had come up with." She smiled again and shook her head.

"Do you mind if I tell Amos I was right?" Benjy said after a moment.

Lily looked up at him, his face was all serious and his eyes narrowed. She went to tuck her hair behind her ear, and remembered to late that she didn't have long hair anymore. "You can tell him whatever you want I suppose. Your story will do more for my reputation than mine."

"Thanks, mate. I knew I could count on you." He gave her a wink and then stood up and walked back over to his friends. It was after he was gone that Lily realized just how truly terrible she was at interacting with blokes, or pretending to be a bloke for that matter. She pulled out a piece of parchment and composed her letter to Marlene.

 _Mars_

 _Thanks for the information on the bathrooms, I'll have to look around some, but I'd rather get detention that have Sirius walk in on me naked. Or any of them really, but I really don't want it to be Sirius. He's being an arse today._

 _I'm very happy to hear about Alice and Frank, those two were meant for one another. I'll have to write her a letter after this one is done._

 _Anyway, I have a new problem. I think I keep accidentally flirting with everyone. Like, you know how girls are just generally nice to blokes, they don't want to be rude and what not? We smile a lot and play with our hair, even when we're not interested because it's just what we do? Well I keep doing that, not so much with my roommates, but with other blokes who talk to me. Like this one kid, Benjy Fenwick, he just sat down across from me and I don't know if he noticed anything, but I was definitely flirting with him. Accidentally of course, but still._

 _I also wish you were here with me,_

 _L_

 _Ps – I just remembered something strange about this morning too. When I woke up, the blokes let me have the bathroom to myself. And they all kept their shirts on while I was in the room. Don't really know what's going on there._

OOoOo

Back in her dorm that night, she found James and Remus playing chess. She put her things down on her trunk and then sat down next to them on the floor.

"You been in the library all evening?" Remus asked.

"I'm not going to get top marks if I don't work for them." Lily sighed.

"And why is it so important to you to get top marks?" James asked.

"I want to be an Auror."

"Yes, but you don't need to get top marks in everything to be an Auror."

Well, you did if you were secretly a girl. "My dad said that if my grades slip up, he won't let me go to the Stale Potions concert at the end of term. I'm easily incentivized." She shrugged.

James laughed. "Stale Potions are a good group."

"Hey Moony?" Peter asked from across the room. "Can you come and help me with this?" Remus looked at Lily.

"Can you step in for me?" He asked.

"Sure." Lily nodded. Remus stood up and Lily scooted over to his vacated spot.

"You any good?" James asked.

"Pretty good." Lily said nonchalantly. She was more than pretty good, she was _very_ good. Marlene, Mary, Alice, Dorcas, Emmeline, none of the girls had ever been able to beat her. Her grandfather had taught her how to play when she was younger and she had taken to the game rather quickly. "Why are we playing with a muggle set?"

"Wizard's chess gives me a head ache." James said. "I mean, all those stones smashing each other over the head, this is much nicer." Lily agreed, but she had fun playing with a wizard's set. Though, she was usually drinking when they got into actually tournament back at the academy. She laughed thinking about it. Chess, drinking parties. Beauxbatons wasn't all bad.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh nothing, I was just thinking of something my sister told me about the girls at Beauxbatons."

"Well this could be interesting." James grinned, raising a brow.

"Sort of, it's just- well, it's an all-girls school and the professors are very strick, and sneaking off the grounds is almost impossible," She was starting to ramble. And about things that Marcus didn't have firsthand knowledge of. She shook her head. "For fun they set up these chess tournaments, and every time you lose are piece, you have to drink." Marlene always managed to get pretty sloshed, and she and Lily both found it positively riveting when those little stone men started bashing each other in.

James laughed. "That sounds like it could be fun." He moved one of his pawns, the first move he made since Lily had taken over for Remus. "Your sister have any more stories about the find ladies of Beauxbatons?"

Lily fought the urge to purse her lips. "'Fraid not. Mars hates Beauxbatons for the most part. And most of the girls who go there." James' face fell. "I am her brother though. If there was interesting stuff happening, I'm sure she wouldn't tell me."

"Right." James said. "Then I'm going to keep my fantasies as they are."

"Sure thing, mate." Lily shook her head.

"I wish we had some girls here." He sighed. If only he knew, Lily thought with a smirk.

"You and me both." If there were some girls here, then she wouldn't have had to sneak in here using Marlene's brother's name. "You and me both."

* * *

 **AN: I'll be better about updating. Schools out, I only have one job now, life is settling down. Sort of.**

 **Anyway, reviews are cool.**


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: I mean, there's nothing really that I can say. I'm a terrible person and that's why this update took so long. I apologize and I hope you enjoy this fun, frustrating, angsty chapter.**

* * *

 **Day Six:**

Lily woke up on Tuesday morning to a lot of whispering. She stretched out in bed and tried to pick out a few words, but she wasn't getting anything. She thought about letting them have their privacy, and going back to sleep, but they weren't really doing much to keep their conversation a secret and Lily was curious, so she pulled the covers away and pushed herself off the bed. The flagstone floor was cold on her bare feet, and she reached for a pair of socks as the whispering stopped.

"Morning, blokes." Lily nodded at them, noticing once again, that they were all fully clothed. "What're you talking about?"

"You didn't tell us that you had a girlfriend." Sirius deadpanned. Lily narrowed her brows and saw that Sirius was holding a piece of parchment in one hand and a smaller piece of paper in the other.

"We didn't read your letter." James said, putting his hands up. "Well, not all of us read your letter."

"Well how was I supposed to know that it was Marcus's?" Sirius asked, turning the letter over and pointed at where a name should have been. "It's addressed to 'The sexiest bloke in Gryffindor. How was I supposed to know that that _wasn't_ me?"

Lily could see his dilemma, because if someone had given her a letter that was addressed to the 'sexiest bloke in Gryffindor,' she would have thought it was Sirius's too.

"His name is at the top of the page," Remus pointed out.

"I skipped the name part-"

"Can I have my letter please?" Lily asked, walking across the room and holding out her hand. She had absolutely no idea what was going on at the moment, but she had an inkling that Marlene was involved somehow. Sirius handed it over and Lily tried not to look too surprised as she read through it.

 _Marcus,_

 _If you weren't at an all-boys school I would have assumed that you had found someone new, tossed me aside, replaced me like yesterday's paper. Who in their right mind, goes an entire week, without talking to their girlfriend, when said girlfriend looks like me? You better count your lucky starts that I love you, otherwise you'd be in some serious trouble right now._

The letter than delved into how some girl named Trinity, who Lily was quite sure was fake, had taken to acting like a jealous cow because she had overheard whoever wrote this bloody letter about how Marcus and her had taken a trip to Spain and spent the entire time naked.

 _Tell me how your classes are going, if you have beaten anyone up yet, or if anything interesting has happened. I've enclosed a picture to motivate you. I know writing letters isn't your favorite thing to do, but I hope I am._

 _Love, love, love,_

 _Camila Travers_

 _Bloody hell_. Lily bit down on the tip of her tongue and closed her eyes. "Give me the picture." She said, reaching out her hand. Sirius did as he was told rather quickly.

"It's not dirty, mate." He muttered, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. Lily opened her eyes and inspected the picture. Cam had her breasts all pushed up and her lips were puckered, but it was not a dirty picture. She breathed a sigh of relief, and then started freaking out all over again.

Why was Marcus McKinnon's girlfriend writing her letters here at Hogwarts? Why did she not know that Marcus McKinnon had ditched school to pursue his dream of becoming an actor, why was she sending pictures? What if she had sent a photo of Marcus and her? How would she have explained that to her roommates?

The better question might be, _why was Marcus dating Camila in the first place?_ Marcus was not Lily's favorite person by any means, he was lazy and impulsive and a bit rude, but he was nice to her for the most part and made her laugh. Camila on the other hand, was an absolute shrew.

Oh sure she was lovely, she always had been. Speaking softly, using her big brown eyes to get whatever she wanted and manipulating people into doing things for her. Having her hang around the McKinnon's house all summer had been absolutely horrible. Lily had to put up with her snide remarks about blood status' and while she knew that the McKinnon's did not agree with some of the things she muttered when Lily was around, Marcus did nothing to stop her.

" _Her head's full of air, Lily."_ He told her. _"Correcting her would be tiresome and a waste of oxygen."_ Lily's nostrils flared just thinking about her.

"So," Sirius raised his eyebrows and grinned at her. "You spent a week in Spain? Naked?" Lily felt her face get hot and started shaking her head.

"You don't understand- Cam and I- she's just-" She pulled at her hair and frantically tried to think of a way to explain this, because there was no way in hell that she was going to pretend that she was dating Camila Travers. "Cam and I-"

"I just want to know why you wouldn't brag about a girl like that." Sirius said, leaning over to get a look at the picture again. "She's clearly _very_ into you, and very into you being into her." He winked.

"We broke up!" Lily shouted, crumpling up the letter and photo. "She's a terrible person and we broke up. But she's bloody nuts, so she refuses to accept it, keeps acting like we're still together when we're not."

Sirius looked at the picture in Lily's hand and then at the letter before shaking his head in confusion. "I'm sorry, what? Who the hell cares if she's nuts? She's bloody _hot_."

"Is that all you care about?" Lily asked before she was able to catch herself. She'd spoken to Marcus, she knew that it was all blokes cared about. "She's vapid and boring and _offensive_ as all get out. I mean all summer she was hanging around my house and my sister had her muggle born friend over and she kept making snide remarks about how she shouldn't be there, or how she wasn't equal with my family-" She was ranting and she needed to reel it in. But to her surprise, her roommates got bristled by this.

"What the fuck?" Sirius asked, looking down at the picture. "I mean, she has to just be repeating things she's heard other people say because she doesn't look capable of her own thoughts, but still."

"You can't go into someone else's home and tell them who they're supposed to allow in and keep out." James said, shaking his head. "I'm so tired of all this hate against muggle borns."

"She's still hot though," Sirius shrugged. "It's too bad."

"What are you going to do about her?" Peter asked.

"Well, ignoring her might not be the best choice," Remus said. "If you've already broken up with her and she sending you letters that don't mention at all the fact that you're broken up…"

"Yeah, you might want to try again. Were you clear?" Sirius asked, "Because she mentions a naked vacation. You don't do that with your exes."

Lily's mind was reeling. She mentioned that Camilla had been a dick to her because she was a muggle born and all four boys were instantly on her side? They didn't even know _'Lily'_. She was just Marcus' sister's friend and that didn't matter to them. "I didn't," She cleared her throat. "I didn't realize you were all such muggle born advocates." She tried not to let her gaze linger too long on Sirius, but she was the most shocked by his support in the matter.

"Well you're not really allowed to be apathetic at the moment," James narrowed his brows. "Not with everything that's going on, you either stand against bigots, or your stand with them." There was murmurs of assent and Lily felt a rush of fondness for this strange little hodgepodge group in front of her.

"You mean it?" She asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

"Of course we do," Sirius said, looking both forceful and confused. "We're good people the four of us. "

"And you." James added.

"Yeah," Sirius sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I mean, it must have been hard to dump someone like her for the sake of principles." He looked at her picture again.

"Yeah," She muttered.

"Why do you seem so surprised?" Sirius asked.

Lily didn't have a good reason for that. Well, _Lily_ did, but Marcus? Not so much. Marus hadn't even been willing to ask Camilla to kindly shut the hell up for Lily. Lily shrugged. "I know that you're going to be offended, but- I just am surprised. You and James especially come from families that are quite prominent in our world," She shook her head. "I guess I just didn't think that you'd be so- That you would-"

"Care?" James provided.

"That's a bit unfair of you." Sirius said.

"It's just been my experience." Lily said. She looked at the clock that was hanging on the wall and was glad to find that this conversation had taken them halfway through breakfast. "If we don't get going, we're not going to get to eat before classes." She said. She was flustered. And she wanted to get away from them. She'd let too much of her mask slip.

"Right, breakfast," Peter spoke up. "I'm starving."

"You're always hungry," Sirius laughed.

"Like you can talk," Remus said.

And the boys, they didn't seem to notice that she was uncomfortable, and went about getting ready for the day.

OOoOo

In History of Magic, she ended up sitting next to that Ravenclaw bloke who had asked her how she got kicked out of Durmstrang the other day. She hadn't been avoiding her roommates on purpose even, she had just taken a detour to use the restroom (having to wait until the room was empty so she could sit and pee and not be ridiculed) and by the time she walked into class, the seats surrounding the Marauders had filled up. Remus sent her an apologetic look, but she shrugged it off, quite glad that she got a break from them.

"Marcus, right?" He asked, looking over at her.

"Yeah, and you're Benjy, yes?"

"Right-o." He nodded. They smiled at one another and then went about getting out their parchment and quills to take notes.

"This class is dead boring." Benjy sighed, dipping his quill in his inkwell and writing the date in the corner of his parchment. "By far the worst class at Hogwarts."

Lily chuckled, "Well, I'm not really looking forward to it now." She said.

"Oh right, you haven't taken this class yet, have you?" Benjy smirked. "Sorry, don't mean to poison the well, but- Well, this class is pretty dreadful."

"Thanks for the warning I suppose." Benjy winked at her and professor Binns floated into the room, and started the lecture. Ten minutes in and Lily knew exactly what Benjy had been talking about. The way that Binns talked, it was like he was trying to make them all fall asleep. Lily started tapping her foot on the floor in an attempt to keep herself conscious. She heard Benjy chuckle and looked over at him.

"I told you so." He muttered.

"I feel like I'm being hypnotized." She sighed, resting her chin on her hand and crossing her legs at the knee. She sat like that for a moment letting her foot bounce in the air, continuing to write out Binns' words as they appeared on the blackboard at the front of the room.

"How is that comfortable?" Benjy asked, shifting about in his chair. Lily looked down at how she was sitting and narrowed her brows, and then her face turned red and she realized that maybe this shouldn't be comfortable because she was supposed to be a bloke and blokes had their parts sticking out between their legs and didn't like to sit in ways that smooshed those parts.

"Well, it's not for very long," Lily muttered, putting her foot back on the ground and sitting up a bit straighter. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Benjy try and sit as she had been.

"I guess it's not as bad as I thought it would be." He shrugged, putting his feet back on the ground. She didn't know why, but it was then that she remembered that during their last interaction, she had been flirting with him. Her face got even more red. This day was shaping up to worse than when James and Peter walked in on her while she was trying to shower. She was so going to get found out.

She didn't know why it was so easy to forget that she was supposed to act like a bloke around Benjy. Though, she supposed she did the same thing around James sometimes, but she always had to be thinking about the little things when she was in the dorm. She had to think about what words she chose, how she sat, how she walked, how she reacted when people touched her. But Benjy didn't seem to care, at least she felt like he wasn't judging her as much as her roommates, and for all she knew that could be totally wrong.

"Your face is starting to match your hair, Red." Benjy chuckled.

Lily looked over at him with wide eyes. "It is not." She said, even though she knew that her entire head was probably resembling a tomato right about now. She muttered something about being too warm and then turned back to face the front of the room. Benjy laughed quietly and nudged her elbow with his own.

"Sure." He whispered.

Lily was very unsure about what was happening, but now she felt like maybe Benjy was flirting with her as well. Or maybe he was just being nice, but she didn't know for sure and she just wanted this day to end.

Class ended about four days later, or at least that's what it felt like, and Lily stood up as quickly as she could without raising too much suspicion from anyone other than Benjy, and raced out of the classroom, hoping to find her roommates again, because interacting with them seemed preferable to staying alone and giving Benjy an opportunity to corner her and tease her about how her face was still red.

She didn't see the Marauders anywhere, and soon her frustration was getting the better of her and she felt her eyes stinging, which was ridiculous and she _couldn't_ cry, not in front of all these boys. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands and clenched down her jaw.

"Oi, Red!" Benjy called after her and Lily swore under her breath, but stopped and turned to face him. "You forgot your textbook." He said, smiling kindly and holding it out for her.

"Thanks," She muttered, taking the book from him and shoving it in her bag. She took a deep breath and sighed. "I'll see you round, Benjy." She said and then turned around, her eyes still stinging.

"You alright, Red?" He asked.

"I'm fine." Lily said, without turning back around. She had been stupid to think that she could do this, that she wasn't going to get caught, that she wasn't going to stand out like a sore thumb. She marched down the corridor until there were very few people around and then turned into the first empty classroom that she found unlocked. She locked the door behind her and pulled out a sheet of parchment, writing a very angry, tear stained letter to Marlene would have to make her feel better, because really, it was the only thing that she could do.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: Look an update that didn't take forever! Isn't that amazing? And it's a long chapter too. Remember that I love reviews.**

* * *

Day Seven

 _Marcus,_

 _I cannot believe that she wrote to you! I remember_ you _telling me that you were going to dump her. I promise that I already wrote to sort all this out and I will explain everything as soon as I get an owl back. In the meantime… Well, I guess this has only helped, yes? I mean, now the boys think more highly of you because you had a hot bird hanging all over you._

 _Also, stop flirting with the boys or you're going to make things more difficult for yourself. You're either going to trick some poor lad into thinking they've got a shot with you, when they really want nothing to do with you, or convince the entire school that you're gay. And that would only draw more attention to you which is the last thing you need to do, so I suggest, as I've said time and time again, keep your head down. Don't draw attention to yourself, and seriously, stop flirting with the boys._

 _Love love love,_

 _Marly_

Lily crumped up the parchment in her fist and then tossed it into the rubbish bin. While the letter did promise to find out what was going on with Camilla, it didn't necessary make Lily feel any better. And then, on top of the stupid useless, unhelpful letter, Professor McGonagall had decided that their first exam would be at the end of next week. Had they even learned enough material for that? Could they have an exam over two weeks' worth of classes? Apparently so, and no one aside from Lily seemed all that surprised by this. In Beauxbatons, they had had an exam after a month or so, and even then it was never anything difficult that they were being tested on.

Immediately after classes, Lily went up to the dorm room and threw herself on her bed. She was going to fail. Not only had she not managed to turn her hairpin into a blue bird, but she had actually turned it into a blue toad and she wasn't sure how that had even happened because the spells for bird and toad were entirely different and McGonagall had thought she was trying to be funny and took ten points from Gryffindor. Remus told her not to worry about it, but she felt bad. She'd lost the house points, and she was going to fail, and Marlene had nothing useful to say.

"Chin up, McKinnon." James said. He was the first of her four roommates to return to the dorm and Lily, while glad to see him, had sort of hoped that she'd have the room to herself for a while. She needed to wallow about in her misery, undisturbed.

"What do you mean, 'chin up.' You saw what happened in class today." She rolled over so she was on her back and then leaned up on her elbows. "There's no way that I'm going to pass."

"You're going to do just fine." James said, sounding far too sure of himself.

"You don't understand, I've always been dreadful with Transfigurations. I mean, I've never much tried this advanced stuff," Which was true because it wasn't taught at Beauxbatons, "So now I'm in a NEWT level class and I don't know what the bloody hell I'm doing." She pushed herself off the bed and started pacing. "And if I fail this exam, then I'll just fall even more behind, and then I won't get a good score on my NEWTS and then I won't be accepted into the Auror program and then this would all have been for nothing!" She was reeling a bit and needed to tone it down, Lily was starting to come out where Marcus should be.

"Calm down, mate." James said, shaking his head and smiling. "Even if you don't get into the auror program, it wouldn't be the end of the world. There's always the Hit Wizard program, and I don't think you need a NEWT in Transfig for that. Have you looked into that?"

Lily had looked into that, but that wasn't what she wanted to do. She wanted to go out and find the bad guys, hunt them down and bring them to justice, not just show up when they're called and take out the trash. At least that was what Lily had always imagined hit wizards doing. "I want to be an Auror." She said firmly. "I've always wanted to be an Auror."

"Well then there's really only one thing to do." He smirked and ran a hand through his hair. Lily felt her stomach flip a bit and was confused as to why that was, but James kept talking and she didn't have time to ponder it. "I'll have to tutor you."

"Tutor me?" Lily said quietly, "You'd do that? You know how dreadful I am and you'd do it anyway?"

"You're not going to unsell me on this idea. Besides, I like a good challenge." He said. "I used to help Peter with his homework and you can't be more helpless than him. Though I never understood why he was so terrible with Transfiguration, it never made any sense."

"Transfiguration never made any sense, you mean." Lily chuckled, feeling much better now that James had agreed to help her. "And if at any point you don't want to do it anymore, I completely understand that and all you have to do is say so and I'll start bugging Remus instead."

James laughed and stuck out his hand. "Sounds like a deal." Lily nodded and then reached out and shook his hand. Her stomach swooped again, but that was nothing. She was probably just hungry because she'd been stressing so much today that she hadn't been hungry.

"Dinner is soon, yes?"

"Yeah, you want to head down?"

"Yes, I'm starving." Lily said. "And then I'll be heading to the library to tackle that stupid essay that Professor Binns set. How does anyone sit through that class without falling asleep?" She ditched her cloak and bag and started towards the common room, James following in her wake.

"It's one of the many mysteries of Hogwarts." James shrugged. "That and Mrs. Norris are two that I haven't quite worked out yet."

"What about Mrs. Norris?"

"I don't know how old she is." James shrugged. "Or if she's just a normal cat, or some type of magical cat, or maybe she used to be human and Filch accidentally turned her into a cat and never worked out how to turn her back. Or maybe he doesn't want to turn her back and she's trapped in cat form, helping him catch students who break curfew in hopes that he'll have a change of heart." Lily laughed at that and shook her head.

"That's the most barmy thing I've heard all day. And I'll remind you that I sat next to Peter and Sirius today as they discussed all of the things that could be hiding in Flitwick's mustache."

"Ah well," James shrugged. "But you asked why Mrs. Norris was a mystery."

"I suppose I did." Lily chuckled.

They continued to talk to one another as they made their way to the Great Hall and when they finally reached the Gryffindor table, Lily saw that two of her three roommates had already sat down to eat. She sat opposite of Peter who was next to Sirius, and looked to be working on homework. James took a seat next to her.

"Why are you doing that now?" Lily asked, giving him a strange look. "You'll have time later tonight and you won't get food all over it."

"Pete does this sometimes," Sirius answered for him as he reached over to ruffle up Peter's hair. Peter swore at him when he accidentally swiped at the still drying ink and it smudged on his paper.

"I'm not starting over on this," He muttered, bending down and scribbling out the now illegible line and rewriting it underneath.

"If you need help, just ask Marcus. He's good at Charms." James said.

"Yeah, maybe a little too good." Sirius chuckled and Lily noticed that James kicked him under the table. "Ow! And why shouldn't we tell him what people are saying?" He asked. "He has a right to know."

"What people are saying about what?" Lily asked, honestly confused. "What does Charms have to do with anything?"

"I was implying that you're quite the _charmer_." Sirius said. Lily looked around but the other two boys were too busy exchanging looks with one another to bother looking at her. She was forced to take the bait.

"And what's that supposed to mean. You didn't read another letter from my exe again, did you?" Sirius waved his comment away and shook his head.

"No, I don't read people's mail- on purpose anyway. No, it's just… I was talking to some people at the end of Transfiguration and they told me about how Benjy seemed to be quite taken with you." He winked and Lily took a deep breath. She knew that this might happen.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying that Benjy Fenwick fancies you." He said, wagging his eyebrows. "And he thinks you fancy him too." Lily knew that she should blanch at this, but honestly she wasn't at all surprised.

"I suppose I'll have to talk to him then," She said, pulling some food on her plate for something to do. She suddenly wasn't very hungry anymore. "I didn't mean to give him that impression."

Sirius narrowed his brow at her and then shoveled a bite of food in his mouth. "I wasn't expecting you to take this so well." He said.

"How were you expecting me to take it?" She asked, now narrowing her own brow. "I'm a good looking bloke, I was nice to him and we get along, if he's into blokes why wouldn't he be into me?" She knew that that sounded dreadfully arrogant, but that's how these particular blokes spoke of themselves, so she figured that Sirius would respond well to it. She was right, as he shrugged and chuckled.

"I suppose you're right."

"So Benjy's not the only one who thinks Marcus is attractive?" James quipped, rejoining the conversation now that he was sure that Sirius wasn't going to make Lily uncomfortable.

Sirius pretended to check Lily out, which made her roll her eyes. She picked up her pumpkin juice and took a drink just as Sirius opened his mouth. "I mean, if Marcus were a girl, I'd totally shag him." Lily snorted into her drink, causing it to splash up around her mouth and dribble down her chin. She picked up a napkin and started laughing as she cleaned herself up.

"Really?" She asked.

"You could make a pretty bird," He shrugged, looking quite pleased with her reaction.

"I'd make a _very_ pretty girl," Lily laughed.

"You seem quite certain." James said, raising a brow.

"I'm very certain." Lily nodded, and then looked around the table. As entertaining as this conversation was, it wasn't a safe topic. "Where's Remus?" She asked by way of changing the subject.

"Not sure," James said, looking around himself. "Probably up in the dorm or something. I'm sure he'll be down soon."

He wasn't down soon, but Lily didn't notice as she was soon engaged in more mindless banter with James and Sirius while Peter furiously scribbled down his Charms homework as though he wasn't going to have all night to complete it.

oOoOo

After dinner, Lily waved the lads ahead, saying that she wanted to find Benjy and straighten things out before anyone's feelings got hurt. Sirius called her a girl, which she found insulting even if it were true, as he didn't know that and he meant it to be insulting anyway. She wasn't looking forward to it, as she'd never had to do this before as a girl, and didn't know exactly how to do it as a boy. There was also the fact that she was very much aware that she had flirted with Benjy every single time she had interacted with him, so she was going to have to watch herself.

He wasn't too difficult to find, as he was in the second place she looked; the library. Luckily for her, he was seated in a more secluded area, and there weren't any people sitting in the tables surrounding him. They would have relative privacy.

"'Lo, Benjy," She said, trying her best not to look as nervous as she felt. "Mind if I join you for a while?"

Benjy looked up and smile at her, "Course not." He said brightly, moving some of his things around so that the chair next to him was open. Lily had been planning on sitting across from him, but he had just went through the trouble of moving his things, it would have been rude to not sit next to him now. But then again, boys didn't really think like that did they? Lily shook her head and sat down next to him, letting her bag drop on the table in front of her. "I'm just trying to get through the homework that Binns gave us." He said, dipping his quill in his inkwell and scribbling down a few more words before he set his quill down and looked over at her. "But I'm glad you joined me. Even if you are being quiet."

Lily smiled, finding that even now, she wasn't forcing a smile or anything. Benjy was just a nice person and she enjoyed being around him. There was also the fact that he was doing the very homework that she had planned on doing tonight. "He set the homework yesterday," She said, working hard not to sound too playful. "And it's due next week. Don't you have any other more prudent homework?"

Benjy sighed, looking almost relieved for some reason and then shook his head. "It's the curse of us Ravenclaws. We can't get to sleep until all our homework is done."

Lily raised her brow, impressed. "Really?"

"Well, not all the Ravenclaws I suppose. It's really just me." She laughed and then remembered why she had come here. She needed to talk to him. "You have a nice laugh." Though, she supposed that could have reminded her. She felt her cheeks heat up and she looked down at the table. She heard Benjy chuckle and then he bumped his leg against hers under the table. She definitely should have sat across from him. It might not have prevented leg bumping, but it would have put a lot more space in between them and made it more difficult. "And-"

"Benjy," She interrupted whatever he was about to say and forced herself to look up at him. He looked over, his brow slightly raised. "I came here to talk to you about- Well, I mean- I don't actually know how to do this." She admitted with a sigh.

"Well, I do." He said with a grin, leaning a bit closer. "There's a Hogsmeade trip coming up in a couple of weeks. Would you go with me?"

Lily was sure her face was tomato colored right now. "Benjy I can't." She managed to get out. "I mean, you're a great bloke and I have fun with you but-" Benjy cut her off by leaning forward and pressing his lips against hers. She froze, unable to scoot any further away without falling off her chair. He pulled away, still smiling at her.

"No buts," He said, picking up his quill and twirling it around his fingers. "You and I are going to Hogsmeade together."

"Benjy I'm-"

"And we'll have a great time because you think I'm a great bloke and we have fun together and I think you're fine." She really needed to stop blushing around him, there was definitely a reason that he was being so brazen when they'd only had two interactions before this. She'd only been a boy for seven days and she was already mucking it up.

"Benjy I'm not gay." She finally managed to spit out. It was about five minutes too late, but still, she managed to say it and she was almost proud of herself. "And as flattered as I am-" But she was interrupted yet again, this time by Benjy's laugh.

"Right, you're not into blokes. And the sky's not really blue either."

Lily was confused now. "What are you talking about, I'm trying to be honest with you and you're- I don't even know what you're doing."

Benjy frowned slightly and inspected Lily's face. "Two things," He said, holding up his fingers. "One, we just kissed. And if you _weren't_ gay, you wouldn't have let me do that and you probably would have hit me for trying it. And the second thing- actually I'm going to say there's three things, but the second thing is that you are constantly a blushing mess around me, which I find adorable by the way. And the third thing is that I've seen you checking out Black and Potter's arses about half a dozen times since _yesterday_." Lily scoffed indignantly.

"That is completely untrue." She said, crossing her arms over her chest and jutting her jaw out.

"Not to mention you drop the whole macho bloke act around me." He said with raised brows. She quickly uncrossed her arms and set them on the table.

"You know what?" She said, getting a bit upset now. He wasn't listening to her, and it was hard to argue with him because everything that he said was completely true, but she was going to have to try because she didn't want to string him along. "Firstly, I couldn't have bloody well stopped you from kissing me because you didn't give me much of a warning. I don't hit people either, never have and I never will. Secondly, I'm a blushing mess around _everyone_ because I'm about as socially inept as a talking bookshelf! And Thirdly, _I have never checked out James or Sirius's arses._ " She finished. The last one was not only a complete and utter lie, but she'd also check out their torsos quite a bit. And their chests, though she did see a lot less of them now that they wore shirts to bed.

Benjy was quiet for a moment, going over what she'd said in his head. She thought she might have gotten through to him when he simply shrugged and started packing up his things. "Nah, you kissed me back." He said, winking at her. "And you've definitely been checking out your roommates. I mean, I check 'em out too, their fit."

"Benjy I'm not gay." She repeated, soundly more exasperated than anything else. "I have a girlfriend. She'd a terrible person and I'm trying to break up with her, but I have a girlfriend."

Benjy laughed. "You're trying to convince me that you're not into me, by telling me that you're trying to dump your beard?"

"My beard- what does that even mean?"

"Never you mind." He said, shaking his head. "I've got to get back to my common room. Promised my mate I'd help him out with his Arithmancy homework. I'll see you tomorrow though." He leaned down and kissed the top of Lily's head. "Maybe you can tell me about your girlfriend?" He chuckled again and Lily was left sitting there with a dumbfounded expression on her face and a tugging sensation in her stomach. How did she managed to muck things up this badly? And only a week into term? Only seven _terrible_ days and Marcus already had a more interesting love life than Lily did. It was a terrible, mixed up, broken love life where someone was bound to get hurt, but he had one and that had to count for something.

She picked up her bag and started trudging back to her room. She felt terrible and horrible and half of her wanted to ask Remus for half of his chocolate supply and then curl up in her bed and cry, but she didn't think that would fly with her roommates. They would probably think that she was mental or something. Boys don't cry after all. So she took a few deep, calming breaths as she walked through the common room. She couldn't tell if she was being paranoid or if people were staring at her, but she couldn't find it in her to care.

When she reached the room, she was all prepared to be berated about how her conversation with Benjy had gone. Sirius would ask her how the date went and James would throw something at him while Remus told him not to be an arse but really they would all be curious. They were annoying, but at least they were consistent. At least none of them were trying to kiss her.

Luckily when she walked in, she found the room completely empty. She was a bit confused, but grateful. She stripped down to her underclothes, grabbed her pajamas and walked towards the bathroom. She needed to just be a girl right now, she needed to be Lily Evans, not Marcus. So, she got in the bathroom and she locked the door behind her. For some reason she felt as though her roommates wouldn't mind her wanting a bit more privacy today. She unwrapped her chest and put on her pajama shirt.

She didn't quite think all of this through. She knew that she wanted to be here, that she wanted the education that Hogwarts had to offer her so that she could take her NEWTS and go on to join the Auror training program. She wanted to make a difference, it was important to her. But she didn't realize how emotionally draining this would all be. She pulled out her wand and tapped her head twice, watching as her hair grew out to her shoulders and her features softened. It took a moment to recognize herself in the mirror, so accustomed she had become to seeing Marcus look back at her. It there really was a Hogsmeade weekend coming up, maybe she could take advantage of it to be herself. To get away from Hogwarts for a little while and go and visit with her friends and family. She was missing them a lot right now, and it was the perfect excuse to ditch Benjy too. A good old fashion family emergency was something that no one could argue with.


	8. Chapter 8

_"Beneath the makeup and behind the smile I am just a girl who wishes for the world."_  
 _― Marilyn Monroe_

 **Day Eight**

Lily woke up the next morning to an empty room. She was shocked by this so she went around and checked each of their beds individually, even looking under a few of them just to make sure that they really weren't there. She had thought it was peculiar when they didn't come back to the room before she had gone to sleep, but it really hadn't been that late when she turned off the lights. She really hadn't been in the mood to talk to any of them after her strange interaction with Benjy, so to avoid them, she just went to bed in hopes that she would be asleep when they got back.

But they never came back and now she was worried.

She knew that she had only known them for a week now, and they probably got up to all sorts of things that she had no idea about. She understood this, but where else would they be if not in the room?

She was going to have to ask a professor about it- but then what if they weren't in any sort of danger and her asking about them got them into trouble? Then they would be upset with her. There were four of them, and where ever they were, she was willing to bet they were together. Maybe they just wanted to have a night to themselves, they were all nice to Lily but she wasn't nearly as close with any of them as they were with each other. Lily wasn't even as close with her old roommates as they seemed to be.

She had just decided to give them a few more hours to show up before she alerted any of the professors when they walked through the door. Lily had been in the loo brushing her teeth when she heard the door open and heavy footsteps enter the room. By the time Lily entered the dormitory again, James was the only one not in bed. Lily quirked a brow at him, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Can you take notes for us?" He asked, walking over to his bed as though his feet were made of lead.

"You're not going to classes?" She asked. She shouldn't have been so surprised, because Peter was already snoring and Sirius had made a cocoon out of his comforter and she couldn't see him at all.

"Nah, not today." He shook his head. "I know it's not really fair to ask-"

"Of course it is," Lily said quickly. "You agreed to help me study for Transfiguration, I can take notes, I'm _good_ at taking notes." James smiled, it didn't reach his eyes and quickly turned into a yawn, but it made Lily's cheeks heat up all the same. It was a ridiculous reaction that luckily James didn't see because he had already fallen face first onto his bed.

"Thanks, Marcus." He toed his shoes off and fell silent.

"No problem," She answered. It felt weird when he called her Marcus. For the most part she had gotten used to it when everyone else referred to her as Marcus, bet when James used that name, and sometimes when Remus used that name, it made her feel slightly guilty. It reminded her that she was lying to these people that she was starting to consider her good friends.

She looked around the room and then picked up her bag, hitching it up her shoulder and then walked out the door, careful to close the door slowly and quietly.

oOoOo

Breakfast by herself was an interesting challenge all its own. Mostly because she didn't end up sitting by herself.

She had been sitting at the Gryffindor table, thinking about the letter she needed to write to Marlene, and also her mum. She was also going through all the homework she had to turn in today, how she would have to pay extra close attention because her sleeping roommates were counting on her. She wasn't sure why they had stayed up all night, or why they were skipping class, but they had been helping her so much over the last week and she didn't mind doing this for them.

She was finishing up her third piece of toast, when someone sat down right next to her. She was half expecting to look over and see one of her roommates had decided to go to class instead of sleep, but when she looked over she saw Benjy. She closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath.

"Morning," He said, pulling his bag onto his lap. He started digging through it and pulling out parchment and a textbook. "Did you finish the Charms homework?"

Lily nodded, and continued to eat her toast. "I thought you didn't sleep until your homework was done?"

Benjy cocked his head to the side and looked at her. "Normally. I would have done it last night but I got distracted." Lily had gone to an all-girls school but she knew what flirting was and Benjy was very good at it. The only thing that kept Lily from blushing was the feeling of guilt that hit her again. Benjy wasn't flirting with Lily, he was flirting with Marcus and Marcus didn't exist.

"Do you need help?" She asked, reaching for her bag. She hadn't been expecting this feeling, she hadn't felt this guilty until today. She pulled out her charms book and her homework and set it on the table, pushing her plate away.

Benjy seemed a bit taken back though. "Are you alright?" He asked quietly, putting a hand on her shoulder. Lily clenched her jaw and started tapping her leg.

"I'm fine," She said, brushing him off. "Do you need help with the Charms homework?"

"You're sure?" Lily sighed and then put her books back in her bag.

"Look, I was just trying to help you." She stood up from the table and started walking towards the door. She didn't wait for Benjy to say anything or to realize that she was walking away, she just started walking towards the door. She had never dealt with lying well, when she was younger and tried to lie to her mum and dad to get out of trouble, that's when her underage magic would come out the most. Her ears would turn bright red, steam might come out or other small things. She had made it down the corridor before Benjy caught up with her.

"Hey," He caught her arm and spun her around to face him. "Are you upset with me?"

"I said I was fine." She said, doing her best to remain calm and look him in the eye.

"That doesn't mean it's true." He sighed. Lily pulled her arm away from him and started shaking her head. She was fine, she could do this.

"Are you upset about yesterday?" He asked, looking nervous for the first time. "Because I know that I was being- I was being more than a little forward and I wasn't listening to you-"

"Stop," Lily interrupted. "Please, this isn't your fault. This is all my fault and I've made a complete and utter mess of things and I just- that's it really. I made a mess of things." She pulled at her hair. She could have let Benjy blame himself, and it wouldn't have been too far off because he hadn't listened to her and he had been 'more than a little forward' but she was still lying to him. Everything that had happened had happened because she was lying to everyone. It wasn't Benjy's fault that she wasn't really a bloke, or that she was having a mental break down. This was just so much harder than she had thought it would be. She had come into this expecting the classes to be the hardest part, and here she was about to cry in front of a bloke who fancied her.

Benjy took a step towards her and she started shaking her head. "Please don't," She said. "I'm not- I'm not who you think I am-" Her voice cracked and she cursed herself out in her head. Blokes didn't cry in front of each other, she _had_ to pull herself together. She shook her head some more. "Just leave me alone," She said, "Please."

"Fuck that," Benjy said, still sounding a bit nervous, but who wouldn't be in this situation? Still, he walked over to her, grabbed her wrist and pulled her into an empty classroom. "Now tell me what the hell is going on."

Lily wanted to yell at him, to scream that it wasn't any of his business but she couldn't. Her breathing had become even more erratic and she could feel her eyes start to sting.

"Marcus," Benjy said, using her false name for the first time and that sent her over the edge. She started crying and fell back against the wall, allowing herself to slide down until she was sitting on the floor. Benjy quickly moved to sit down next to her, wrapping an arm around her.

"You don't have t-to do th-this." She managed to get out, trying to calm herself down. "We're n-not really friends. We- we've only known each other f-for a f-few days." She wiped at her face angrily and pushed the hair off her forehead.

She could practically hear Benjy roll his eyes. "Would you just tell me what's wrong already?" He said, his hand rubbing her arm comfortingly. "I know you said this wasn't my fault but- you were fine yesterday, and then I kissed you in the library and now- I'm not going to tell anyone what happened if you don't want me to. I _haven't_ told anyone." He looked over at her and smiled, it was forced but the concern in his eyes was genuine.

It would be really nice for someone at Hogwarts to know the truth, to know that she wasn't Marcus, that she was Lily and she wasn't a bloke. But there was no guarantee that Benjy, as good intentioned and sweet as he seemed, wouldn't tell a professor. They had only known each other a few days, and while that was long enough for Benjy to decide that he fancied Marcus, that wasn't long enough for Lily to decide if someone was trustworthy or not.

But now she was going to have to come up with some excellent excuse as to why she had broken down in front of him, seemingly at random. She pushed herself up off the ground and shook her head. "It's just family shit," She muttered, drying off her face with her back towards him. "You caught me at a bad time, and I'm sorry about biting at you but I'd really rather not talk about it." That was good, that was a solid excuse. He wouldn't push her to talk about 'family shit,' because that was personal. She turned around to look at him and he was still sitting on the floor.

"You're sure that you don't want to talk about it?" He asked, reaching his hand up so that Lily could help him off the floor. She hesitated a moment, but took his hand and pulled him up, skillfully moving away to grab her bag as soon as he was on his feet.

"I'm sure that I don't want to be late for class." She said, slinging her strap over her shoulders. "Did you really forget to do your Charms homework?"

He inspected her for a moment and shrugged. "I needed an excuse to sit down." He grabbed his bag and went to open the door, holding it for Lily. She nodded at him and they were back in the corridor, heading to class as though nothing had happened.

oOoOo

When her roommates finally decided to grace the world with their presence, Lily noticed that Remus was absent still. The other three looked like they had just barely escaped a fight with death and she was worried about them, but it was Transfiguration that eventually made them re-enter the world as James told her.

"McGonagall wouldn't let us get away with it." He explained as he dropped onto a chair next to her and looking as though he might still be asleep.

"Well," Lily shrugged. "Should she?" James chuckled and shook his head before letting it fall down against the table.

"I suppose not." He said. "But I'm still really tired.

"Will you all skip Herbology too then?" She asked. He looked very endearing just then, his hair more messy than usual, his glasses crooked from being pressed against the desk, his eyes very droopy. Lily couldn't help but smile at him.

"Nah, we're already out of bed. It's more work to go back up to the dormitory than it is to go down to class."

"There are a lot of stairs to get to the tower." She agreed. Then she forced herself to stop smiling and look away from him. She didn't need another rumor going around that she fancied James, that would make things in the dormitory a bit uncomfortable. Again. And she was just now starting to feel comfortable around them. They let her shower with the door locked and didn't walk around half naked anymore.

"Too many stairs," He nodded, his cheek getting caught on the table and Lily had to cough to keep herself from giggling.

"Is Remus alright?" She asked, taking out her notes and textbook. "I didn't see him."

"He's got the flu." James said, keeping his head on the table. "He's been in the hospital wing since yesterday." Lily narrowed her brow and tried to think about the last time that she saw Remus. He hadn't been at dinner last night now that she thought about it, had he been at breakfast? She couldn't remember.

"Why didn't anyone tell me he was sick? Now I feel bad, I would have went and visited him or-"

"Remus doesn't like people fawning over him." James interrupted, sitting up and looking back at the door just in time to see McGonagall walking in. "He'll be better soon and you can talk to him all you want." Lily didn't have time for any more questions, as McGonagall called the classes attention.

oOoOo

She was careful to avoid Benjy after all of her classes, since after the fact, she remembered that she had neither told him that she wasn't gay or told him about Camilla, her 'girlfriend.' And while she'd mentioned both things last night, he hadn't really believed her. She offered to help James bring food up to the dormitory for Sirius and Peter, who had gone back to bed after Transfiguration and while she'd seen Benjy, she just nodded at him when he waved and then walked out of the Great Hall after James.

"So where were you last night?"

"What's going on with you and Benjy?"

Both questions came out at the same time and Lily felt her face turn red at his question. "Sorry, what did you say?" James said, shaking his head slightly and carefully stepping over the trick step without dropping any of the food.

"I asked where you all went last night?" She said, having a bit more difficulty with the trick step.

"Oh, we just have this- tradition I suppose." He shrugged. "We like to go out sometimes and just-" He tilted his head back and forth trying to think of what to say and Lily found herself getting more and more curious. "I don't know. We should probably stop doing it, but we won't."

"Okay, but why would you do it in the middle of the week? Why not wait until the weekend?" James laughed tiredly and shook his head.

"That's a good question." He didn't look like he was going to elaborate anymore and then repeated his earlier question. "What's going on with you and Benjy? Did you talk to him last night?"

"I tried." Lily hung her head and sighed.

"What does that mean?" James narrowed his brows and grinned at her. "Did you forget how to speak after finding him or-"

"I might as well have." She huffed. "I mean I found him in the library after dinner and I asked him if we could talk and then for some reason he thought I was asking him out and then he asked _me_ out and it spiraled from there. I tried to tell him that I wasn't into blokes, that I had a girlfriend but he didn't believe me and then-" She cut herself off and pressed her lips together. She shouldn't tell James that Benjy kissed her, right? After all, Benjy had said that he hadn't told anyone, and he probably wouldn't want anyone to know once he finally worked out that him and Lily were never going to be a thing.

"And then what?" James asked, his smile growing wider. "You can't end there. Do you have a date with Fenwick?"

"According to him," She sighed again.

"Merlin, you know you can't tell Sirius this right? He'd take the mickey out of you."

"For what? This isn't my fault. He thinks you and Sirius are fit too!"

"That's because we are," James shook his head. "And no, not because Fenwick likes you, but because who else would find themselves in this type of situation? You've got Benjy after you, your girlfriend won't let you break up with her and you just seem so surprised about it all." He laughed and Lily smiled. She wasn't really sure why, other than that she liked the sound of James' laugh. "And to top it all off you were expelled from Dumstrung and I can't work out how that's even possible because you're bloody terrified of hurting anyone's feelings, and that includes our professors- and that keeps you from skiving off in class or on assignments. Are you sure it really happened?"

Lily pursed her lips. "Why would I make something like that up? I'm not proud of it, if it didn't actually happen I wouldn't-"

"And then there's that. Either you were a completely different person last year or- I don't even know. But you don't accidentally get expelled- and _you_ especially." He was still laughing and Lily was starting to think that maybe his exhaustion had something to do with it, but couldn't help the smile on her face anyway. He looked over at her. "So? Were you a someone else last year?"

She knew it was a harmless question, that he was joking with her and tired, but her heart still skipped a beat at the thought of how close to the truth he was. "Feels like it." He nodded. "It was a long summer." That sobered James up slightly and he nodded.

"It was a long summer." He nodded.

They made it back to the dormitory and Sirius looked like he was going to cry when he saw that they had brought back food with them. "I love you both," He said, digging into a piece of chicken as though he hadn't eaten food for days.

"Looks like you love that chicken," Lily said, looking slightly disgusted. "Why don't you slow down so you don't choke?" He waved her off and continued his frenzied eating. Peter was much more subdued, and in a sort of zombie state. "You all look broken." She said.

There wasn't much response to that and Lily shook her head. "Alright," She said, taking a few bites of her own dinner. "Well, I've got notes for you all when you want them, I'm going to start on some homework."

"Thank you," Peter said, liking his fingers and Sirius nodded.

"Yeah, thanks."

She smiled at them and felt pretty good for maybe the first time that day. She may have been lying to these boys, but at least she was helping them as well. She was being as honest as she could with them, and it wasn't going to hurt them when they found out the truth.

 _Mars-Bars_

 _So today wasn't as terrible as it could have been even though Benjy, that boy I accidentally flirted with in the library a few days ago, he kissed me last night (we were in the library again.) And then today I sort of broke down and cried in front of him but I'll work that out and I'm not super concerned about it, even though I maybe should be._

 _Anyway, how are things with you going? Has Beauxbatons broken your soul yet? How is Alice and Dorcas and the rest of the girls?_

 _Love you bunches, miss you tons,_

 _-L_

* * *

 ** _AN:_ Review, my friends. pls. **


End file.
